These are not the same size of amplifier: HiFi Rose RA180 has roughly 3.2x the power of Mark Levinson No.5802. That is about 5.1dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | HiFi Rose RA180 has more power - 400W against 125W into 8 ohms. That is about 5.1dB - a different class of amplifier rather than a bigger version of the same one, and far more than most rooms will ever ask for. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Mark Levinson No.5802 the better fit for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room, and HiFi Rose RA180 for a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | Mark Levinson No.5802 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 250W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | HiFi Rose RA180 is the quieter design on paper - 107dB against 103dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Mark Levinson No.5802 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Phono stage | depends | HiFi Rose RA180 has a built-in phono stage (MM,MC) and Mark Levinson No.5802 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Mark Levinson No.5802 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Mark Levinson No.5802 is Class A/B and HiFi Rose RA180 is Class AD. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | HiFi Rose RA180 takes up about 22% less shelf area (1909cm² against 2454cm²), and it is 116mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | HiFi Rose RA180 costs less - $6,995 against $8,500 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | HiFi Rose RA180 is the cheaper watt - about $17 per watt against $68. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Mark Levinson No.5802 B HiFi Rose RA180
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
HiFi Rose RA180 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Mark Levinson No.5802 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - HiFi Rose RA180 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 125 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 275 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate HiFi Rose RA180 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.