⌈ FOS AUDIO is unusual an unusual company by the audio industry standards. Its parent company is Magic Decors, whose business includes luxury furniture, mainly for bathrooms. As we read in the About tab on the company website, it has existed for "over twenty years". Using its experience in woodworking, based on audiophile experience, the company also offers well-made anti-vibration products - racks and platforms. We are testing the FOS-70SXL anti-vibration platform. ⌋

he case of the FOS AUDIO (Free Out Sound) is rare but there are some other excellent brands with similar history. Let me point out the hORNS by Auto-Tech, i.e. the audiophile branch of the manufacturer of resin elements for cars, the manufacturer of horn loudspeakers, or the analog specialist, the J.Sikora, owned by the Allmet, a company offering luxury balustrades. I could find probably more examples, but these are, at least for me, the most spectacular ones. They show that experience in material processing and musical sensitivity under one "roof" bring excellent results.

It may also be the case with the Magic Decors company and its audiophile branch, the FOS Audio. Take a look at the furniture of the former, and it will be clear that these people really know their woodwork. They can also give form to their products, which makes it a Piece of Furniture, not just another piece. The FOS-70SXL platform that we're testing also looks great. Made of wood, slate, with rigid decoupling, placed on top of the Finite Elemente rack, it looked as if it was made by the same company.

KRZYSZTOF ROGUCKI
Owner, designer

The FOS-70SXL platform is based on the FOS-7SXL model. It consists of two separate bases. The lower one is made of multi-layer MDF, veneered with ebony wood colored black. It is decoupled from the ground with double carbon steel spikes. The upper section is a metamorphic stone with a specific, irregular structure, enclosed in a wooden box, combined with MDF (upper layer) veneered with ebony in the same black color. This part is decoupled from the bottom platform with spikes.

The idea behind this model, as well as other designs of my firm, is isolating from external and internal vibrations by breaking them in many directions from side to side, along with simultaneous absorption by appropriately selected materials.

Privately and professionally I am a designer, constructor and musician, so I act intuitively and gain more experience all the time, by experimenting while playing music and when creating it. So I pay attention to new sounds and perception of music during rehearsals or listening sessions. In the case of audio equipment, we deal with resonances and reflections that distort good, clean sound. A large group of music recipients, as well as musicians (artists) themselves, are still not convinced that every day they are dealing with "dirty" sounds. That is why I transfer the observed results to my racks and platforms for audio components.

And it all started with music. At the age of thirteen, my passion for music like Sodom, Kreator started. A classmate talked me into playing music too - he played guitar, I played drums. We studied, formed bands, toured. About twenty years ago I made stands for Paradigm speakers. This was my first contact with audio accessories. I squeezed the best performance from the speakers, but I did not take it seriously and forgot about it later.

After over fifteen years, however, we returned to playing music. Now we went for “lighter” music, like Metallica, Rammstein, but it was going slow. We were adults now and had other obligations - work, family, business. At the rehearsals, the buzzing guitar irritated me and I remembered the stands I once had made for the speakers. So I constructed the Fos-7 platform for the guitar speaker and the sound improved immediately. I used similar solutions in cabinets and racks. When it turned out that I was doing it right, I decided to take it seriously so that the furniture not only had an impact on the sound, but at the same time that it looked original, modern. I don't give up with music, maybe I will continue playing with my sons. For now, I would like to interest people in FOS products. ♦

| HOW WE LISTENED TO IT

The Fos-70sxl platform is quite high, so you need a lot of space for it. Its dimensions are (width x depth x height): 450 x 400 x 170 mm. I placed it on the top shelf of the Finite Elemente Pagode Edition rack. I tested it by placing the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF Edition SACD player (№ 1/50) on it. It was compared on the one hand to the pneumatic Acoustic Revive RAF-48H platform, and on the other to the sound of the device placed directly on the top of the Finite Elemente rack. The platform is rigid, so there was no problem with running the power cables, even fat ones. Let me add it looks really good ...

A day after the FOS Audio platform arrived, a postman knocked on my door, bringing a large package from Japan. The box contained the long-awaited Abbey Road by the Beatles, in the best version available, that is, on three SHM-CDs and one Blu-ray Audio disc. Let me remind you that this is a release with the new Gil Martin mix. I already knew the CD in hi-res version from Tidal and I'd always love it. However, when I heard how it really sounds from the CD, I was amazed.

The Polish platform presented the beauty of both music and new sound, in a very cool way. It kept, most importantly, the firmness of the sound and its "drive". It also showed saturation of the bass, which is one of the most important changes in the new version of this iconic album. From itself, at least in comparison with the pneumatic Acoustic Revive platform, it added a slight privilege to the midrange, primarily its lower part, and also brought the perspective closer to the listening position.

Lennon and McCartney's vocals sounded low and saturated and finally one can hear how different the vocals were! With the tested platform they were a bit closer to me and did not have such a clearly defined reverb. I will also add that the sound attack was slightly rounded. They were, however, very "musical" modifications, if I can say that. They did not distort the message or even supported it, although they emphasized slightly different aspects of the sound. So with the Polish platform, strong drums and dense guitar in the Abbey Road, and beautiful Hammond in Something sounded really great, plus there was this very good, credible, musical transition between channels in the Her Majesty track ending the album.

Quite unexpectedly, such sound characteristics worked well with recordings, which often sound rather poorly on a high-end systems - like the Pet Shop Boys Super album. The tested platform presented sound quite close to me, with the midrange emphasized and with the rounded, even slightly withdrawn upper midrange. The recordings sounded steady, rhythmic, had the right beat, but were also slightly "made", going in the direction of warming up the sound.

It was a nice modification. Because the sound intensity, its weight and scale were kept with it. This is not an expensive platform, so it will be affordable for many music lovers and will be used in many different systems. Most of them suffer from one of two issues: sound it too light or too hard in them; sometimes both are the problems at the same time. The FOS Audio will solve these problems, withdraw the treble slightly, modify the attack a little. With most recordings available today, often with aggressive remastering - but not only with these - it will be a blessing for our devices - and ears.

One should not be afraid that something will go wrong with better quality recordings. The Beatles have already shown that it is a mature sound. But it also matched well the sound of emotionally involved recordings, for example from the Outblack album by Joe Farrell, with Elvin Jones on drums and Chick Corea on an electric piano. This is a typical recording from the early 1970s - there is no trace of the resolution of the recordings from the 1950s, nor of the dynamics. But there is color, density and there is a spiritual aspect of music, which previously often escaped the sound engineers.

The Polish platform showed these differences really well, with commitment. It boosted the sound of Buster Williams' bass, turned up the density of the whole presentation. The foreground was quite close to me, hence the depth of the stage was not great, but that's how this album was recorded. The most important thing is that - if I can call it that - the "secret" of the good music carries in it was preserved. I heard it before with Abbey Road, and even with Super, but only now, with such a spiritual performance, it hit me particularly hard.

And probably that's why I enjoyed playing No Worries from Marta Zalewska's debut album so much. There was depth in it, there was a secret, there was something beyond music. The timbre of the guitar and vocal saturation were properly and carefully rendered, the transition between the sound of the first part and the wide panorama entering exactly at 1:00 with Zalewska's multiplied vocals was very well marked. The presentation was placed close to me, it was slightly soft and slightly warm. It was very good.

You see, this piece comes from the soundtrack to the radio play Black Source by Bartosz Szpak, available at Audioteka (a version titled No Worries ( STORIES BY version) with Krzysztof Pacan is available there). It tells a story about a meeting with emptiness, with nothingness and how we, people, react to such a meeting. So it is related to the theme of the movie Ad Astra directed by James Gray, with Brad Pitt in the lead role (2019). In both cases it is about a certain mood - the mood on the one hand of melancholy, on the other fear, but on the third of hope. Because it turns out that at the end what matters is who we are, the small good things each of us carries within. /p>

| SUMMARY

And all this thanks to the fullness, density, saturation, which the Polish platform has well mastered. Which is puzzling, because - at first glance - it's a simple design, without any innovative technologies, without use of expensive materials. It seems very classic. And yet ... Well-selected and combined classic solutions have, as you can see, huge potential. And FOS Audio knows how to use this potential. ■