A couple years ago, I bought my wife a turntable. She'd been talking about all the records she grew up listening to and thought it would be nice to be able to play them. Thinking that was the scope of it, I bought an inexpensive turntable for $129 with the plan to rip her records to digital. Then, she started buying vinyl. This surprised me, as she is definitely not an audiophile, but she decided she liked records. I discovered that I did as well, no for the fidelity, but for the tactility and intentionality involved with playing them. Putting on a record is more of an event than just streaming something.
I wanted a better turntable, but that was pointless unless I solved another problem. My new Onkyo receiver has a pretty bad phono preamp. This was not a surprise, but the thing that held me back from just buying a phono preamp is that the Onkyo is really not that great for music. It converts absolutely everything to digital, does everything in the digital domain, then converts back to analog. It also has a pretty high noise floor. None of that matters for TV and movies, but it is not great for serious music listening. I needed another overhaul.
The solution I landed on was to have separate gear stacks for music and home theater with a switch in between so I can switch the amplifiers for my main speakers back and forth. The home theater stack is an NVidia Shield, a Sony 4K Blu-Ray player, the Onkyo TX-RZ50 receiver, and a pair of Fosi V3 amps for the center and rear speakers.
The stereo stack I had to build.
Fosi ZP3 Preamp
The ZP3 has two RCA and one balanced input. Source and volume are remote control. There is a subwoofer output with a few filter settings. Super clean and simple.
Fosi Box 1 Phono Preamp
I was going to buy the much more expensive Box 5, but I am not using an MC cartridge and don't expect to need the additional gain controls. I can always swap it out if I am wrong, but I think this will hit the price/performance sweet spot.
Douk Audio L3 Stereo Audio Loop Switcher
This is how I will switch back and forth between the two systems. The fact that it is remote makes the whole thing so much easier.
SMSL PL100PRO CD Player
This little beauty actually has a separate DAC for each channel and has balanced outputs. I normally don't care about that last bit, but one of the three inputs on my preamp is XLR, so it is pretty handy.
Technics SL-D2 Turntable
This beauty was manufactured about 45 years ago and is reputedly built like a tank, sharing much of its DNA with the more famous SL-1200. It has been tested and appears to be in very nice condition. I will determine the condition of the cartridge and stylus when it arrives.
The final piece of the music stack is the WiiM Ultra I already have. The shared amps for my main speakers are Fosi V3 monoblocks that I am already using. The SVS sub has multiple inputs, so sharing that is fairly simple. I am going to dial it in for optimal performance with the analog stack and let the Onkyo do its thing for the HT side. The entire cost of these five pieces of gear was $720. All are well reviewed and I've had nothing but great experiences with Fosi.
Thoughts? Have I lost my mind?
I wanted a better turntable, but that was pointless unless I solved another problem. My new Onkyo receiver has a pretty bad phono preamp. This was not a surprise, but the thing that held me back from just buying a phono preamp is that the Onkyo is really not that great for music. It converts absolutely everything to digital, does everything in the digital domain, then converts back to analog. It also has a pretty high noise floor. None of that matters for TV and movies, but it is not great for serious music listening. I needed another overhaul.
The solution I landed on was to have separate gear stacks for music and home theater with a switch in between so I can switch the amplifiers for my main speakers back and forth. The home theater stack is an NVidia Shield, a Sony 4K Blu-Ray player, the Onkyo TX-RZ50 receiver, and a pair of Fosi V3 amps for the center and rear speakers.
The stereo stack I had to build.
Fosi ZP3 Preamp
The ZP3 has two RCA and one balanced input. Source and volume are remote control. There is a subwoofer output with a few filter settings. Super clean and simple.
Fosi Box 1 Phono Preamp
I was going to buy the much more expensive Box 5, but I am not using an MC cartridge and don't expect to need the additional gain controls. I can always swap it out if I am wrong, but I think this will hit the price/performance sweet spot.
Douk Audio L3 Stereo Audio Loop Switcher
This is how I will switch back and forth between the two systems. The fact that it is remote makes the whole thing so much easier.
SMSL PL100PRO CD Player
This little beauty actually has a separate DAC for each channel and has balanced outputs. I normally don't care about that last bit, but one of the three inputs on my preamp is XLR, so it is pretty handy.
Technics SL-D2 Turntable
This beauty was manufactured about 45 years ago and is reputedly built like a tank, sharing much of its DNA with the more famous SL-1200. It has been tested and appears to be in very nice condition. I will determine the condition of the cartridge and stylus when it arrives.
The final piece of the music stack is the WiiM Ultra I already have. The shared amps for my main speakers are Fosi V3 monoblocks that I am already using. The SVS sub has multiple inputs, so sharing that is fairly simple. I am going to dial it in for optimal performance with the analog stack and let the Onkyo do its thing for the HT side. The entire cost of these five pieces of gear was $720. All are well reviewed and I've had nothing but great experiences with Fosi.
Thoughts? Have I lost my mind?