Following advice of Abe Collins at an Asylum thread I reset iTunes AIFF encoding to automatic and 16 bits. I've now become pretty proficient at resetting the Sony HAP, clearing the iTunes library, resetting encoding, and clearing the memory of the HAP transfer app. The actual process of ripping to the Sony HAP-Z1ES requires of me only inserting a CD or SACD into the reader I use with my iMac. The resulting sound is excellent, indistinguishable from that with the disc played on the Sony SCD XA5400ES.