The HP-A3 is the entry level desktop USB DAC and headphone amplifier from Fostex. At £300 it's not quite their cheapest DAC, that's covered by the £65 PC-100USB model. This will go nicely with their more reasonably priced headphones, but I was expecting to see something in between the two. Perhaps something around half the price of the A3, like Arcam's rPAC. Fostex seem content being on either side of this price bracket for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if they cover this price point soon.
Considering the A3's price and size I was surprised to see it powered solely by USB. Should you be concerned about the A3's capabilities if you own some hard to drive headphones? Actually probably not, unless you own something particularly crazy (like the Hifiman HE6). I was really quite blown away by how much volume is on tap here, considering where that power is coming from. This makes it a great option as a laptop combination for high-end headphones. It's not the smallest USB powered DAC/amp in the world, but transportability is a definitely an option here.
My personal preference for sound signatures in headphone listening is that the bass presence comes from the headphones. Then, ideally, the amplification keeps that body/power under control, tightening things up a bit, but without being overly lean and losing the potency. This is exactly what I get from the HP-A3, it's a wonderful partner to headphones that have a bit of extra bass. Although something like the V-Moda M-100 still has way too much to keep under control without EQ, for me. Now I'm not saying that the A3 reduces the bass, actually I think that it's presentation is nicely neutral, what I'm really saying is that unlike some amplification it doesn't add anything to it. There is a real transparency to the A3's sound and that can sound bass light compared to some, especially if you're upgrading from the sub £150 range.
The bass is tight without lacking body, the midrange is very clear and exciting, the treble is full of detail and well controlled. This tonality is very similar to it's bigger brother, the HP-A8, which I reviewed recently and really loved! The A8 has superior smoothness, better technicalities and a ton extra in/outputs, but there is a real family resemblance here. It seems that Fostex have a great recipe for neutrality and transparency, whilst remaining very musical. This is nicely consistent throughout their entire range of DAC & headphone amplifiers.
There is superb clarity and tight detail from the top of this presentation to the very bottom. Vocals are presented with such clarity that the midrange almost feels forward, but it's rarely overbearing. Midrange texture and timbre is truly wonderful and the icing on the cake is a three-dimensionality to the soundstage which is hugely impressive. The first aspect of the A3's sound to jump out at me was the wide and very natural soundstage. This was also true of the HP-A8, although the A8 was more impressive, of course. Ultimately the A3's crowning achievement for me is how it renders the low frequency texture of naturally bass happy headphones. To explain this further let's start a new paragraph...
HEADPHONES
I really like the A3's sound combined with the Denon AH-D7000 and Sennheiser Momentum. These headphones have a nice natural potency in the lower frequencies that feel very nice when tightened up by the A3's amplification. It creates a beautiful texture to the sound and makes a lot of music very enjoyable. Even the Beyerdynamic DT770/32 and V-Moda M-80, which have a little less potency, benefit from this great bass rendition. I didn't quite like the SoundMAGIC HP100 combined with the A3. The sound was a bit too harsh in the high frequencies and not enough body in the lows. I tend to prefer the HP100's bass emphasised, if only a little and that just didn't happen here. The Denon's bass however (D2000 - D7000) is truly stunning with the A3. If, like me, you're looking to tighten up that slightly flabby Denon tendency, without ruining it's tremendous potency - then this is possibly a match made in heaven.
MUSIC
Here are some individual music tracks and how I felt the Fostex HP-A3 coped with them. These were listened to in lossless and MP3 - 320kbps compressed (Spotify). I have cut this section down to a more 'bullet point' like presentation, so as not to cover the same ground too much and bore you to death.
- Florence + The Machine: "Drumming Song" - Airy and exciting. Forward and friendly vocals (Sennheiser Momentum)
- Michael Jackson: "Black Or White" - Wonderfully vibrant and three dimensional, great rendition and separation of instrument and vocals (Beyerdynamic DT770/32)
- John Williams (Temple Of Doom): "Slave Children's Crusade" - Low frequency wind sections and drums punch with significant weight without feeling flabby and high notes are nicely detailed without being recessed or splashy (Beyerdynamic DT770/32).
- The Prodigy: "Smack My Bitch Up (Major Lazer Remix)" - Potent and wonderfully rendered bass! It kicks hard and envelops your soul with deep vibrations of joy - Dubstep bliss! (Denon AH-D7000)
- Michael Buble: "The Christmas Song" - Vocals are beautifully rendered and nicely forward without being even slightly fatiguing at high volumes (Sennheiser Momentum)
- Kaiser Chiefs: "Ruby" - Extremely musical and lively with with wonderfully isolated and three-dimensional vocals (Denon AH-D7000)
- Linkin Park: "Figure.09" - Open and spacious. Instrument separation is vast. Bass is wondrously deep, but nicely textured without infecting the midrange (Denon AH-D7000)
Competition for the HP-A3 is pretty fierce and varies from the downright tiny to full-size, fully-featured, mains powered desktop DACs with built in headphone amplifiers. I will talk about a couple of the better ones here, ones that I've had more experience with and I will try to describe how the Fostex stacks up against them.
The CEntrance DACport is one of the smaller USB powered units around. It might fit in your pocket but a USB input, a volume dial and a large headphone jack is all you get here - this is DAC & amp 'bare bones'. The sound quality that comes out of this tiny little pencil sharpener is pretty stunning! The DACport produces levels of transparency and detail that truly amaze, perhaps even more so than the HP-A3. It's a bin too lean for my liking though and does lack in a few other areas too - namely warmth and soundstage, but also smoothness and volume. The Fostex is quite a bit bigger, but let's not forget that it has an optical input as well as an optical out, RCA line-outputs for an external amplifier and more power on tap.
The Yulong D100 mkII is on the other side of the size spectrum to the DACport. It's actually over three times the volume and weight of the Fostex HP-A3 and is understandably in the mains powered arena. I mention it here because it's a similar price to the A3 and to demonstrate what that extra size enables the back panel to accommodate. The D100 mkII has: Three alternative digital inputs, balanced RCA and XLR outputs, connections for two large headphone outputs (high and low gain) and an illuminated LCD screen.
Sound wise the D100 mkII is a terrific DAC, with a respectable headphone amplifier (considering what's been squeezed in to the value). Detail resolution is pretty great and equally matched on both machines. The soundstage of the D100 mkII is good, but it doesn't seem to be as wide as with the A3. The amplifier's presentation adds a healthy bass potency and isn't as forward in the upper midrange. This actually made it more friendly to most headphones, but perhaps was not as great with some. The more naturally bass happy headphone combinations can be more enjoyable with the A3. On the flip side; the D100 mkII is a much nicer combo with the SoundMAGIC HP100 headphones, which uses the amplification to emphasise the bass body rather than the headphones and it gives a convincing case for it's methods. Of course this is just my opinion and bass lovers may wish to combine amplification and headphones that display this tendency.
The Fostex HP-A3's DAC (AKM AK4390) runs at 32bit internally, but the inputs are limited to 24bit / 96khz. Actually the sample rate is fixed at 96khz via USB. Generally you won't notice this because your computer will up-scale audio automatically, but in the case of bit-perfect audio ('ASIO' or 'WASAPI' through players like JRiver or Foobar) your software will throw up an error if you don't manually tell it to up-scale CD quality files first.
Let's be honest - the connections of the A3 are pretty basic for it's price, but that can be a good thing. It means that your money isn't being split so many ways and the design team didn't have to divide their focus between so many components to make it sound good. On this issue - I wonder if we can start to omit optical outputs on USB DACs soon. The main reason for them seems to be to enable older DACs to connect to a PC. If that's the case why not just buy a device purely for that purpose? Otherwise almost all of the other features on this DAC & amp are wasted money.
BUILD / DESIGN
The construction quality of the A3 is pretty great. It's a simple design, but it feels very solid. The connections, buttons and dial don't feel delicate either and this is great if you want to carry it around with a laptop. At 108x140x36mm it's easily in the 'desktop' arena (read: large-ish), but it's smaller and lighter than the Yulong U100 (which I used to carry between work and home often and that required a separate power adaptor). The A3 seems to spread it's 450g weight around well too because it doesn't seem to feel that heavy.
The lights on the front are quite bright and make it look a bit like a Christmas tree when it's working. Not all units have these indication lights. I can just about see a purpose for them, but I do wish that they were more discrete, better hidden or more easily disabled - for those who dislike them.
I usually like to dedicate a few words to the volume dial of each headphone amplifier. Since we spend a bit of time interacting with them their quality can affect our opinion of the whole unit. Let me just say that I loved the A3's dial! It has no stepping, which I usually prefer because the steps are often too far apart for sensitive headphones. Although not as smooth or as nicely textured as the dial on the Epiphany Acoustic EHP-02D (my favourite mid-price dial so far) it does feel more robust. It also has a nice friction to it and no channel imbalance that I could detect, so another thumbs up from me on a Fostex volume dial, you're two for two, Fostex.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It might not be the prettiest little black box in the world, but it's well built and the key features are solid. I'm not so keen on the optical connections, but the large (6.35mm, 1/4") headphone socket and RCA outputs certainly win it over for me.
If you're looking for a serious sounding DAC and headphone amplifier, that can be powered by USB and drive all but the most demanding headphones I strongly suggest that you give the A3 a good look. It does stunning things to bass without losing potency and it excels with detail, transparency and soundstage.
EQUIPMENT USED
Desktop PC, Dell Vosto Laptop, Denon AH-D7000, Sennheiser Momentum, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro Limited Edition 32 Ohm, GermanMAESTRO GMP 8.35D, V-Moda M-80, SoundMAGIC HP100
