Fosi Audio V3

Verdict

As long as you don’t get over-excited about the claims Fosi Audio is making for the power output of the V3, there’s plenty to enjoy about the way this little desktop amplifier makes your music sound.

Introduction

Fosi Audio is not the only electronics brand founded by Shenzhen Foresight Technology Ltd, but it’s the one most likely to resonate with those of us who take an interest in consumer-orientated audio equipment. 

Since its inception in 2017, the company has created a substantial line-up of two-channel audio products, all of which have the fairly aggressive nature of their pricing in common.

So here’s a two-channel Fosi Audio product that’s fairly aggressive in its pricing. It’s time to find out if there’s any more to Fosi Audio than that…

Availability

In the United Kingdom the Fosi Audio V3 stereo amplifier is available for pennies less than £100. In the United States it sells for very nearly $90, while in Australia it’s a nominal AU$149.

This outlay doesn’t buy you a huge amount of stuff. But that’s partly the point – Fosi Audio reckons the V3 is absolutely perfect for desktop use, which means it wants to be as small as is realistically possible.

Design

• 36 x 105 x 166mm (HxWxD)
• Whole-body heatsink
• Single rotary control

As the description desktop strongly implies, there’s not a lot of the Fosi Audio V3. At just 36 x 105 x 166mm (HxWxD) it’s pretty discreet – those dimensions are helped no end by taking the power supply off-board where it sits in-line between the mains plug and the V3 in a fairly hefty brick.

Part of the reason Fosi Audio has been able to make the V3 so compact is its whole-body heatsink design. As well as vents on the top and the bottom of the aluminium case-work, the entirety of the body functions as a heat-sink – so even when running at bigger volumes, the V3 stays nicely cool.

Dialling volume is done using the V3’s single control. A (relatively) large rotary dial on the fascia controls volume, and also functions as a power on/off switch – there’s a tiny blue LED on the fascia too that confirms the V3 is indeed powered up. For reasons known only to itself, Fosi Audio provides an alternative control knob in the packaging, bright orange in colour, presumably for those who find the V3’s appearance a bit drab. 

Features

• Single line-level input
• Speaker outputs and 3.5mm pre-out
• Swappable op-amps

Just as with design, there’s not a huge amount going on where features are concerned. ‘Just enough’ seems a fairly apt description of the V3’s feature-set.

On the outside, the rear panel has a single line-level input via stereo RCA sockets. Output is handled by a pair of speaker binding posts that can accept either bare wire or 4mm banana plugs, and a 3.5mm pre-out. 

On the inside, the V3 uses judiciously specified and well-regarded components. Inductors are from Sumida, capacitors come from ELNA, NCC and WIMA, and the Class D amplification itself is a Texas Instruments DPA3255 chipset. Fosi Audio reckons it can liberate as much as 600 watts of power from this arrangement – although obviously that’s measured in the most favourable of conditions and with a following wind.

Out in the real world, you should expect an all-in total of no more than 100 watts – which, let’s face it, should be plenty for any realistic desktop application.  

Mindful of its reputation as a supplier of DIY kits for the skilful and ambitious audiophile, Fosi Audio has included a little V3 upgrade path for the true enthusiast. The amp comes fitted with NE5532 op-amps, but these can be swapped by the end user for any number of different eight-pin dual op-amps for those folks who want to make fundamental adjustments to the sound of their V3.  

Sound Quality

• Poised and detailed sound
• Good control and organisation 
• Could easily sound more assertive

During the course of this test, the Fosi amplifies a Rega CD player, an Apple MacBook Pro and a pre-amplified Cambridge Audio turntable. Not all at once, though, obviously – it only has one line-level analogue input. 

During the course of this test, it amplifies – among many other things – a vinyl copy of Unlimited Capacity for Love by Grace Jones, a CD of Ólafur Arnalds’ …and They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness and a Qobuz file of Bullet of Dignity by Fat White Family. And in every instance, the V3 sounds consistent and unflappable. What it doesn’t sound, though, is especially powerful or in any meaningful way dynamic.

On the plus side – which is the bigger of the sides, to be fair – the Fosi Audio is an open and well-organised listen, able to establish and control a soundstage to the point that every strand of even a dense or complex recording is simple to follow. There’s plenty of space for a recording to reveal itself, and appreciable distance both front-to-back as well as side-to-side. 

It balances the frequency range well, too, and can travel from the bottom end to the top without any particular area being over- or under-emphasised. Detail levels are high at every point, and the V3 manages to extract and deliver even minor, transient details as well as the more obvious, headline stuff. 

It’s difficult to fluster, and controls the bottom end with sufficient success that rhythmic expression is pretty decent and tempos sound naturalistic. It communicates well through the midrange, and there’s enough substance to treble sounds to ensure they crunch rather than crash.

Despite its facility with the finer details, though, there’s not a lot of dynamism to the V3 sound. Everything that happens tends to happen at a fairly consistent level of intensity – so even if the recording would like to properly charge into the final chorus after a middle eight of quiet contemplation, the Fosi Audio doesn’t have the muscle to make the difference all that apparent. 

In simple terms, it’s just not all that powerful, and it certainly doesn’t have the reserves to call on when the going gets rowdy or dramatic.

Quite why Fosi Audio feels the need to claim the V3 can twist out 600 watts of power is, frankly, beyond me. All it does is raise a listener’s expectations ahead of the inevitable let-down. More realistic measurements, using more realistic power supply and speaker impedance numbers, would give a better first impression – and then the V3’s lack of outright grunt wouldn’t seem like quite such a disappointment. It’s not as if it doesn’t have the necessary oomph to drive the sort of speakers its size and price suggest will be most appropriate, either…

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