SMSL RAW-MDA 1 DAC & Headphone Amp Review

[scw0w]

If you have a multimeter,

I have one. What should i measure?

 

[Roland68]

I have one. What should i measure?

I already wrote that.
Please check if there is a 0-ohm continuity from the ground pin of the device's power connector to the following points: the chassis, the ground of the RCA jacks, and the ground of the 6.3mm headphone jack.

 

[scw0w]

I found the culprit. Its hard to believe but it is. "Monitor shuts off briefly when I stand up from my desk... On multiple computers" in google.

 

[Sasaoka Toshio]

Some of you may already know this, but the driver for the RAW series, "XMOS_USBAudio_v5.74.0_2025-05-07_setup.exe," has been released. The modification time within the archive is November 20th. Although it contradicts the date in the filename, there is no doubt that it is the latest version.

 

[zuevv]

Some of you may already know this, but the driver for the RAW series, "XMOS_USBAudio_v5.74.0_2025-05-07_setup.exe," has been released. The modification time within the archive is November 20th. Although it contradicts the date in the filename, there is no doubt that it is the latest version.

And what is the correct way to update it?

 

[RHO]

And what is the correct way to update it?

Just run the .exe.
It's not firmware for the DAC. It's the XMOS USB driver for your windows machine.

 

[jareinertson]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL RAW-MDA 1 stereo DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by SMSL and it is a collaboration with Shenzehenaudio (available elsewhere as well) and is on sale for $246.
View attachment 387420
The first thing I noticed was the much more polished display. It is also quite responsive to rotary control. If you click it in, you get the standard SMSL menu system that is functional and easy to use, albeit not as pretty. Back panel shows addition of more inputs:
View attachment 387421

We nicely have internal power supply and balanced outputs -- two things I really like in this kind of product. I do wish there was trigger output though to turn our a power amplifier in home stereo setting.

SMSL RAW-MDA 1 Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard with balanced output with volume adjusted for nominal 4 volt output:
View attachment 387423
I expected SINAD of 120 dB for this price class but we have more than that, nicely landing the unit in our top 20 best list:
View attachment 387424

RCA output takes a smaller than usual hit:
View attachment 387425

Performance improves if you all the the full 5.3 volt output:
View attachment 387429

Dynamic range is of course superb:
View attachment 387426

IMD curve shows excellent performance:
View attachment 387427
As a note, the blue line was a $245 so the same price showing the progress the industry has made to make more quiet and lower distortion DACs despite the inflation.

Multitone performance is absolutely superb:
View attachment 387428

As is the stereophile test of 50 Hz into very low impedance of 600 ohm:
View attachment 387430

Jitter is excellent with both USB and Coax with tiniest spurious tones with Toslink:
View attachment 387431

I have gotten tired of running filter and filter response tests for all the settings as the results are always the same. So I am showing the default, Linear Fast Roll off:

View attachment 387432
View attachment 387433

Using the same, we get this excellent result of THD sweep with frequency:
View attachment 387434

Edit: linearity test:
View attachment 387686

Headphone power with 300 ohm nicely passes my minimum threshold of 100 milliwatts:
View attachment 387435

And produces healthy power with 32 ohm load:
View attachment 387436

The distortion and noise were so low that in both tests I had to scroll the graph up to see where it landed in low gain mode!

50 mv output test shows the best that can be done without a third, negative gain setting:
View attachment 387437

Conclusions
The RAW-MDA 1 aims high and achieves it across the board despite its very reasonable price. It is good looking, compact and easy to operate. Some of this we expect from SMSL but the total package is a step forward, as difficult as that may have seemed.

I am happy to recommend the SMSL RAW-MDA 1.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Thank you for the review. I have been a happy owner for about 6 months.

 

[jareinertson]

Perhaps you can leave the SMSL on all the time? I compared the power consumption of the Topping EX5 and the SMSL C200: the Topping EX5 consumes about 5W in standby mode with auto on/off, while the SMSL C200 consumes only 2.3W in on mode with the optical input selected.

Mine is on 24/7.

 

[jareinertson]

This Dac/Amp has a Stellar 87.9% "Great" votes on the first page but then pages of complaints about popping sounds and firmware issues.
Can anyone clarify their experiences with the the RAW-MDA 1 if used with a Pi streamer as a Roon Endpoint; is this still an issue or does it only happen when connected through a computer usb port?
Thanks.

RAW/MDA1 is working flawlessly for me with Toslink to WiiM Pro Plus as streamer and with Toslink to my CD transport. I am happy with its performance and feature set.