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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
uomoragno
17 posts
 
Amen! To Almarg's post.

"I've got some ideas about using playlists to sort out the Bach cantatas by liturgical Sunday."

I have to say you are totally speaking my language. I thought I was the only one in the world that said things like that.

Awesome! I'm not alone
All the best to you Brownsfan!
Joe
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
Days 10 and 11.
Joe, we are not quite alone, but you can get us all together in one room and still have room for an angel choir singing "Lobet den Herrn."
Now then, having been reminded that my life (and wife) will not permit me full time devotion to this project, I have gone light the last couple of days. I am still experimenting a bit with file types, but for the time being, I am ok with ALAC for the majority of my transfers. They really are quite good in the substantial majority of cases.
There are a few transfers I have made where I was not quite satisfied with the sound. I took Erikminer's advice and transferred in aiff 3 CD's, where the ALAC file was not up to par. Of those three, 2 did not transfer at all (which is far better than a corrupted transfer), while one transferred perfectly. If one changes the cd title in I tunes before the transfer ( I added aiff to the title), the new title transfers and it is easy to distinguish between the 2 in the HAPZ1 menu. The one that did transfer (metadata and all) exhibited a subtle but important improvement over both the ALAC and the original cd as played back through my modwright sony 5400.

For the time being, my best practice is to try Alac first, followed by aiff, followed (reluctantly, and only if it is an important recording) by wav. I have been looking into XLD as suggested by lowrider, but I haven't tried it yet. Reviews appear to be mixed on this software.

Again exposing my ignorance here, I wonder about one of the programs like audirvana? By the time I get done with the ModWright mods, I'm going to be in 4-5K on this thing, so I'm not sure it makes sense to get cheap on $80 worth of software.
vv52b8
12 posts
 
I'm not sure about your corrupted transfer. However, you can copy the files to Z1Es directly without using the Sony tool, follow by a re-scan to rebuild the database.
mitch4t's avatar
mitch4t
1,611 posts
 
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The Sterophile Review For The Sony HAP-Z1ES Player
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brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
I’m about 2 weeks in on the HAPZ1 now. It’s had a decent burn in, so I thought it was time to do some serious A/B with my ModWright Sony 5400, hereafter to be referred to as MW 5400. For this comparison, I pulled everything out of the rack, then turned the backs of the sources forward to facilitate rapidly swithching the ICs. The HAPZ1 was powered through a VooDoo Vector Dragon from my Audio Magic MiniRef, while I used an MAC digital power cord for the MW 5400 per se (my normal Audience e wouldn’t reach with everything pulled out of the rack) and a VH Audio AirSine for the MW PS 9.9 power supply. This had a new production Gold Lion 5AR4 rectifier, which I prefer even to the old mullard GZ34 rectifier. For the first installment of this A/B, my system was configured as follows: Each source fed my Coincident Statement Line Stage preamp via a 2M VH audio spectrum AG IC. VH audio Symmetry (Ag) balanced IC (3M) fed my Cary 500.1 MBs, which drove Coincident Triumph Extreme MK II monitors through Audio Magic Liquid Air speaker cables. I chose the Coincident monitors over my Magnepan 3.7Rs for the first part of this comparison because they are wonderfully (or brutally) revealing of upstream components. They are fast, coherent, articulate and have great timbral accuracy. I chose 3 CDs for tonight’s comparison. All music files were ALAC prepared using iTunes. Everything was powered up and sat idle for about 2 hours, then was used for background music for another 2 hours prior to serious listening.

Shostakovich string quartet #7, Pacifica Quartet. This is a 24 bit PCM recording on Cedile Records. I listened to the entire quartet twice using the HAPZ1 and once using the MW 5400. The HAPZ1 exhibited better spacial localization and separation of the 4 instruments. There was more air and hall ambience, and the cello was reproduced with more bite and faster attacks. Pizzicato was sharper and faster. The MW 5400 presented with a somewhat darker, richer tonality, and rendered the cello a bit more “wooley” sounding. I much preferred the HAPZ1 with this music.
Brahms, Cello sonatas Op 36 and Op 120 #1. Wispelwey (1760 Guad) and Lazic, Steinway D. (Channel Classics SACD). The MW 5400 was a runaway winner with this music. A bit of grain present in the HAPZ1 was gone, and the 5400 had a wonderful, warm, analog sound that was just gorgeous. The 5400 had less air, and attacks were not as fast, but this was not missed at all. The 5400 was just more musical. Both sources were on a par, with the piano centered and the cello just to the left of center. This is a very good recording without excessive hall ambience.
Strauss, Vier Letzte Lieder, Luisi/Harteros/Dresden State Orchestra, Sony SACD. I chose this work because I also have a redbook copy of this recording. In the event that I preferred the MW 5400, I wanted to be able to compare the redbook CD on the MW 5400 to the HAPZ1 Alac file. Again, the MW 5400 gave a smooth, warm, analog sounding account. I noticed that the German was a little tough to pick out. I noted the brief horn solo in “September” as being particularly pretty, as was the violin solo in “Beim Schlaffengehen.” The HAPZ1 did something right here that I could not quite put my finger on. The German was marginally easier to pick out. Neither the horn nor the violin solo were as pretty through the HAPZ1, yet it all came together better somehow through the HAPZ1.

Tomorrow night I’m going to run through the same drill with another 3-4 CDs. I also want to run a similar evaluation using the Magnepan 3.7R’s. I’d like to defer drawing any firm conclusions until I’m done with that comparison also, just to see if any of tonight’s observations would go differently with a change of speakers.
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