What I like about Sony is they bring together all of their resources, they invented the CD with Philips, they invented DSD, you have the TV’s, the PJ’s, the Playstation, Sony Music, Sony Camera, Sony Walkman, Sony Pictures and then they decided to pivot and focus on hirez audio in the 2000’s. The CEO gave the engineering team an open checkbook and said build me the BEST music playback system we can make. They took years in development to get ready and came back with the Sony Signature line. When you have the resources and budget of Sony you can do stuff basically impossible for boutique manufacturers. Audio Note Signature pre= $100K+. The Sony TAZH1ES Signature pre/dac/headphone amp= $2200.
Video:
As you know the issue with recordings (especially streaming) is the quality and resolution of the file. I see people squabbling about redbook, PCM, hirez, MQA, etc. I like DSD but good luck finding the content you want. Then you have this unit which takes Sony’s DSD creds and Sony Music’s library of hirez PCM and DSD master tapes and they can create something like this:
Convert any Source to DSD
Personalizing sound with the new DSD Remastering Engine. Offering double the conversion accuracy of previous models, the new DSD Remastering Engine let you convert all PCM music sources into DSD 11.2MHz.
The technology utilizes FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) to convert any signal into the DSD sound format.
DSEE HX upscaling technology features four additional modes to the standard: female vocal, male vocal, percussions and strings.
Review:
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sony-ta-zh1es.22253/reviews