SMSL DO200 Pro vs Raw MDA 1

[Ravekid75]

Hello everybody and thanks in advance for the advice. Less than a month ago, I purchased the SMSL Raw MDA 1 and recently stumbled upon the DO 200. I have been very surprised by the MDA-1 so far. But I am also intrigued by the integration of 12 chips in the DO200 pro. Just wondering if anybody has been down this road and if it is worth the extra hundred dollars for me to send the MDA-1 back and try out the DO200. Small sidenote, I don’t ever plan on using HDMI. This is a dedicated to channel system for music only.

Cheers

Davin

 

[bachatero]

The 12 chips will make a difference so small you can't hear it compared to the Raw, so use that extra hundred dollars on acoustics instead which will make a huge difference! Hope this helps

 

[AcousticTheory]

I have both, and they are way more similar than they are different. I bought the DO200 Pro because I needed another DAC at my desk (the RAW-MDA1 is the control center for my living room 2ch music system, feeding a couple Icepower amps) and I already use the Drop/THX 789 headphone amp. They are both about equally worth your time. The RAW-MDA1 includes a headphone amp, which gives it the edge, but I already had that and wanted to try the DO200 Pro to see how the 12-chip science experiment would turn out. I don't know how I'd hear more music from anything else. I had a definite preference for one of the DO200 Pro's selectable filters, the Slow+PhComp, over any of the others.