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Sony HAPZ1 For prospective buyers and owners

I have been encouraged to share my experiences with the new Sony HAPZ1ES. I hope a few who may be considering purchase of this unit will find this useful. I expect those not interested in purchasing this unit will want to tune this thread out. There is going to be some detail here. I will provide a summary statement with significant conclusions at the beginning of each days record for those not interested in the details.

It would probably be good to start with a few words to provide a frame of reference. I’m not a computer geek. I’m a reasonably bright guy, but a computer to me is just a tool. It’s a hammer that enables driving a nail, that’s it. I learn what I need to know to do what I want to do and that is all.

My interest in the new Sony is that I expected it would facilitate a long standing goal of assembling a computer based system. Further, it accommodates Hi Rez files, and does on the fly conversion of PCM to DSD. It also offers streaming audio, allowing convenient playback of internet radio. It has a 1 TB hard drive, so there is a lot of room for my substantial music collection.

For me, the deciding factor in purchase of this piece was Dan Wright’s enthusiasm for the stock unit and rapid development of a ModWright upgrade package which he says takes the HAPZ1 to reference levels.

Day 1- Initial set up easy, sound quality indeterminate.

I unpacked the unit and gave it about 4 hours to return to room temperature before turning it on. First order of business was to establish the wireless connection with my home network. This was straightforward and took less than 30 minutes to complete. The unit comes with a small amount of software on the hard drive, so this allowed me to begin playing without having to begin download of my existing music library to the internal hard drive. I played through the free music twice, just to give the unit a little burn in time. The free music selection was not my cup of tea, so I could not draw any real conclusions about sound quality.

Day 2- Some frustration with getting set up for download. Interactions with Sony Tech support a mixed bag. Concerned about Sony’s ability to help Mac users. Sound quality with a casual listen promising with under 10 hours burn in.

I spent about a half an hour transferring music from CD to my iMac. Once this was complete, I went to the Sony website and downloaded the free HAP music transfer software to my iMac. Again this was completely straightforward. Upon opening the program, I ran into the first snag. The box that popped up asked me to select the device to which I wanted to connect. There were no devices to select. I began a dialogue with Sony using the chat room accessible from their website. The person who attempted to help me was completely clueless. She referred me to documents which did not address my problem, referred me to documents addressing connection problems with windows machines, and finally, after wasting about 20 minutes of my time admitted she couldn’t help me. She gave me the Sony tech support number.
I called the number (1-800-222-7669) and went through about 3 people before I got to the correct department. This wasn’t as frustrating as it sounds- It just took a few seconds to get to the Sony home audio ES support line. There was about a 10 minute wait until someone took my call. The guy I talked to was pretty sharp. However, his ability to help was hampered by the fact that “ we don’t have a Mac here.” Well, I would suggest that Sony get one!
While we were talking, he indicated that sometimes it takes a few minutes for the music transfer software to find the device. We worked on the problem for a few minutes, and while he was looking something up, I figured out what was wrong. My iMac bluetooth was looking for the wrong network. Once I selected the correct network, the music transfer software found the HAPZ1 immediately. I selected the device, and he advised checking the content settings. A new box shows file extensions that you can select or deselect to be transferred. While flac, wav, mp3, and 12 others appeared as options, ALAC (Apple lossless) did not appear. However, the support guy did a quick Google and found that m4a is the correct file type for ALAC, and that is one of the types listed so I was OK there. I also added /users/my user name/Music/iTunes as a folder to be watched, which probably wasn’t necessary.
Next, I went to the transfer settings. I turned the auto transfer feature off, and selected internal HDD as the destination since I don’t have an external hard drive yet. I activated the manual transfer, which I was doing wirelessly to see how long it would take to transfer the 200 files (tracks). I walked away for a few minutes and when I came back, I found that the transfer had stopped incomplete. I started the manual transfer again and walked away again. When I returned, the same thing had occurred. This may be due to an auto standby feature which apparently shuts the HAPZ1 down after a few minutes with no activity. I turned this off, but I had enough music transferred to give a more serious listen to the unit. I listened to part 1 of the Dunedin Consort recording of the Bach Johannes Passion. This is a wonderful performance, with recording quality that I have found to be somewhat spotty. It is wonderful in the aria and recicitives, but rough in the Chorals. Played back through the HAPZ1, this was pretty close to what I remembered playing through my ModWright Sony 5400. Next I played the Purcell Quartet recordings of Bach’s Mass in G minor BWV235. This is a standard redbook CD, so I was interested to see what the conversion to DSD 2 would sound like. In a word, playback of this music was just absolutely lovely! I suspect this unit, stock, may give my ModWright Sony 5400 a run for its money, but a serious A/B is still several days down the road.
brownsfan
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
Brownsfan . I've been considering the unit since I heard about it.
But I don't want to record music from my I-Mac, I would prefer burning it direct from my CD player , I'm not worried about the graphics .

Bassically , I want to burn 600 CD's onto it direct from my CD player then take it to the garage where there is no internet connection. Do you think this will work this way or should I be looking for a different machine ?

Thanks Tim
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
Tim, I had a similar hesitation. I have an existing library of about 1200-1500 cds. I thought, "this is not going to be a viable option without a digital in." Unfortunately, a digital in is not an option because of the design. The stock unit does not have digital in or digital out, and the guys who are offering mods have indicated that option will not (can not) be a part of the mod package.
Obviously, I rethought my position and decided I would slowly invest the time to transfer at least the more frequently played CDs. It takes a few minutes, probably 2-4 to burn an ALAC or wave file to your iMac. This is the big time drain. I would suggest you grab a half dozen cds, burn them to your iMac, multiply by 100, and ask yourself if it is going to be a reasonable time commitment spread over several months. I invested about a half an hour one day one, and since then, i just grab a few cds and burn them while I am at the computer anyway.

Wireless transfer from the iMac to the HAPZ1 is substantially faster and can be set to run automatically, so there is really no time burn on that part of the process.

If you don't have a router that will reach your garage, another option is to buy an external hard drive. You can transfer the files from your iMac to the external drive, then take your external drive to the location of the HAPZ1 and download the files via USB.

For a person who has a substantial music collection, and who may purchase hi rez files for download on a limited basis, purchase of the HAPZ1 is going to be primarily driven by the superb sound quality. It is not going to be the right machine for everyone, but for those who can accept it for what it is, it is a real gem.
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
Day 6. Limited listening time but settled on wav as the preferred file type.

I had limited time for critical listening. Family stuff, it's Easter, don't you know. I did get an opportunity to do a critical comparison to an ALAC and a wav file of the same music. I chose the Mahler 3rd, 4th movement for this comparison for several reasons. It is a delicate but emotionally powerful piece of music. You have the wonderful Mezzo singing O Mench gibt auch, the violin solo, the horns, it strikes me as the pinnacle of Mahler's work. At any rate, I transferred both wav and ALAC files made from the Zinman/Tonhalle recording. I listened to both file types through twice. They are very similar, but not identical. The wav file was preferred. The violin solo was sweeter, and the horns were totally devoid of a slight bit of roughness and digital sound present in the ALAC file. The wav file triggered that emotional response just a bit better than the ALAC file. I'm thinking this is the way to go. I also transferred a good bit (wav files) of the music of Heinrich Shutz, and got a good listen to both Die Sieben Wort and the Johannes Passions. I was very pleased with what I heard, but sadly, I had no time for any A/Bs with the ModWright sony 5400 today.
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
Thanks Brownsfan. I do already have all my CD's on my I-mac. I guess your saying there's no way to install the CD's direct from a CD player ? As this would be the best way to transfer music.
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
TMSorosk, There is no way to directly connect a CD player to the HAPZ1. However, if you already have all of your CDs on your iMac, and if you have a home network established, it will be very simple to download your music to the HAPZ1 either wirelessly, or wired via a one time ethernet connection. If you don't have a home network, I'm not sure how this would work. You should probably call sony tech support for an answer on exactly how to do that.
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