Butler,
The stock HAPZ1 is indeed very good. The stock HAPZ1 was on a par with my ModWright Sony 5400 ES player, which I found very surprising. The ModWright upgrades are a no-brainer if you want a one box plug and play music server with excellent performance. The big question is going to be, at 5K, what else is out there? For me, I really like having my entire library at my fingertips. No searching for CD XXYY that I didn't put back in its proper place. I've never had a regret about buying the HAPZ1 and doing the upgrade.
The stock HAPZ1 is indeed very good. The stock HAPZ1 was on a par with my ModWright Sony 5400 ES player, which I found very surprising. The ModWright upgrades are a no-brainer if you want a one box plug and play music server with excellent performance. The big question is going to be, at 5K, what else is out there? For me, I really like having my entire library at my fingertips. No searching for CD XXYY that I didn't put back in its proper place. I've never had a regret about buying the HAPZ1 and doing the upgrade.