SMSL RAW-MDA 1 DAC & Headphone Amp Review

[staticV3]

Is this true balanced?

Line out is differential, HP out is single-ended.

 

[RCL162]

Idea between smsl raw vs topping d50iii?

Give me input, please..

 

[staticV3]

Idea between smsl raw vs topping d50iii?

Give me input, please..

SMSL has a Headphone Amp, Topping has EQ.

 

[RCL162]

SMSL has a Headphone Amp, Topping has EQ.

Ahhh.. currently reading the topping d50iii thread. Thank you, sir!

 

[RoA]

Line out is differential, HP out is single-ended.

The balanced HP out is more important to me than the line out. Shame.

 

[staticV3]

The balanced HP out is more important to me than the line out. Shame.

It shouldn't be.

Balanced HP out serves zero purpose on mains-powered headphone equipment. It certainly doesn't increase sound quality.

 

[diaolodoro]

I did a mains power off and on for my RAW and it took about 3 secs to be ready for use. Settings stayed same as before power off.

Thank you for the reply! So you didn't have to press any button (main knob or remote power button) for the DAC to be ready to use, right?
That might be the DAC/AMP combo I was looking for. Upgrade incoming!

 

[Cool Runnings]

Thank you for the reply! So you didn't have to press any button (main knob or remote power button) for the DAC to be ready to use, right?
That might be the DAC/AMP combo I was looking for. Upgrade incoming!

Yes it powers up in about 3 secs as long as you leave the on-unit power switch turned on.

 

[ReinhardS]

Just a concern: from the product pictures i can see, that the clock processing circuit seems to use only 1 quartz crystal based osciallor instead of two for n x 44.1 KHz and n x 48 Khz. I'm not sure if this is something new.

I hope that they not save expensives with dropping top cd performance. This is by far my most important use case.

 

[john100a]

Just a concern: from the product pictures i can see, that the clock processing circuit seems to use only 1 quartz crystal based osciallor instead of two for n x 44.1 KHz and n x 48 Khz. I'm not sure if this is something new.

I hope that they not save expensives with dropping top cd performance. This is by far my most important use case.

What does this mean in english?

 

[audiofun]

Just a concern: from the product pictures i can see, that the clock processing circuit seems to use only 1 quartz crystal based osciallor instead of two for n x 44.1 KHz and n x 48 Khz. I'm not sure if this is something new.

I hope that they not save expensives with dropping top cd performance. This is by far my most important use case.

you don't really need 44.1 or 48khz clock at all. A correctly implemented PLL (as this product has, and whose performance will not be improved by introducing another clock) can easily outperform a naive implementation using 44.1 and 48khz clock.

 

[ReinhardS]

I think the pll here is based on a single crystal based osciallor, which means the working frequency of this pll can adjusted in a verry narrow range only.
But this may not be a problem if all audio signals are updsampled in the ESS DAC chipset anyway.

 

[Cool Runnings]

After 2 weeks of adjusting and trying to live with the pops and cracks from the RAW, I've given up and replaced it with WiiM Ultra. Ultra costs more but also gives more. And finally peace of mind with the pops and cracks. I managed to reduce 80% of it but for near field listening, it was still enough to drive me crazy. I know the pops don't happen all the time to all users but it was a show stopper to me unfortunately. I used to own SMSL SU9 and that unit had no such issues.

 

[DeDovla]

After 2 weeks of adjusting and trying to live with the pops and cracks from the RAW, I've given up and replaced it with WiiM Ultra. Ultra costs more but also gives more. And finally peace of mind with the pops and cracks. I managed to reduce 80% of it but for near field listening, it was still enough to drive me crazy. I know the pops don't happen all the time to all users but it was a show stopper to me unfortunately. I used to own SMSL SU9 and that unit had no such issues.

As was the case with C200 it seems to come from the HPA of the RAW-MDA1. When using the C200 as a DAC hooked up to L50 there are no pops, clicks etc when there is a sample rate change between songs (which was something I thought was normal as both C200 and Audient ID4 MkII had the same behavior).

 

[Cool Runnings]

As was the case with C200 it seems to come from the HPA of the RAW-MDA1. When using the C200 as a DAC hooked up to L50 there are no pops, clicks etc when there is a sample rate change between songs (which was something I thought was normal as both C200 and Audient ID4 MkII had the same behavior).

I’m not quite tech savvy but I used the Raw with XLR out to powered speakers Kali LP UNF. Didn’t use the HPA. Could the HPA still affect the XLR output?

 

[DeDovla]

I’m not quite tech savvy but I used the Raw with XLR out to powered speakers Kali LP UNF. Didn’t use the HPA. Could the HPA still affect the XLR output?

No, it shouldn't have an impact as HPA only affects heapdhones outputs only. I forgot that I've actaully seen people with speakers complaining so you brought up a good point. In that case it's not only HPA related, I haven't tested the C200 in the same scenario as youself but I expect the behavior would be similar. I'll see at some point what happens when I hook it up to a speaker amp, I would expect that there are no pops (same as when you connect it to another headphone amp such as the L50), but when connected directly to the speakers there is something going on with how SMSL designed it...

 

[Esprit]

After 2 weeks of adjusting and trying to live with the pops and cracks from the RAW, I've given up

Do you think it's a problem with your unit or with the entire production?

 

[Cool Runnings]

Do you think it's a problem with your unit or with the entire production?

I don’t know. Whether it’s a problem with the unit or the other components I used with it. I’ve read that others have similar issues. I also faced the same pops cracks problem some time back with the Geshelli J2 Dac but matched with totally different components. And again that issue went away when I changed the DAC.

 

[aagstn]

I don’t know. Whether it’s a problem with the unit or the other components I used with it. I’ve read that others have similar issues. I also faced the same pops cracks problem some time back with the Geshelli J2 Dac but matched with totally different components. And again that issue went away when I changed the DAC.

I'm keeping an eye on mine. I definitely have a quick light pop turning it off and on, but no pops I have noticed with headphones or speakers when changing tracks or changing between different bitrates and encoding. Sorry to hear you are having so many issues with yours. I would return it as well under those circumstances.

 

[nanook]

Balanced HP out serves zero purpose on mains-powered headphone equipment. It certainly doesn't increase sound quality.

Well, there are two aspects from my point of view.

1) providing a lot of power to a high impedance headphone is easier with a balanced output stage. The ICs used in these stages are capable of ca. +/-20V supply and are supplied with +/-15V typically. This means ca. 10Vrms and ca. 160mW @ 600Ohms for a single-ended output stage.
Having a differential output stage will double the voltage present at the HP and thus 4x power.

2) Having a differential socket and wiring (even when internally not driven differential) has the advantage that the resistance of the common return wire (Gnd) does not degrade crosstalk.
With a low impedance HP and a cheap cable this can lower the crosstalk significantly.
On the other hand, some crosstalk often is perceived as comfortable, so this might be a rather theoretical aspect.

Edit: If you have a moderate impedance HP and ultimate SPL is not the aim, a single ended output stage with a balanced connector is no disadvantage at all - it's rather an advantage.
There's less circuitry involved and the output stage has the easier task to drive the higher impedance (a 32 Ohm impedance looks like 16 Ohms for each branch of a true differential output stage).