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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
erm
5 posts
 
Rownsfan, in response to your inquiry on Audirvana, Pure Music, Amarra etc., these are designed to replace the iTunes playback engine, while using the iTunes as a library for management importing/exporting. They do improve the overall sound as compared to iTunes and most importantly provide seamless playback on red book and hi-rez without having to change the playback in midi.
However, I do believe that since the HAPZ1 uses it's own internal engine it makes the above engines not necessary nor possible.
Thank you for you detailed journey with the Sony. As a result of your findings and that on other forums, I just made a deposit on the unit and should have it by the end of the month.
I'm not a computer guy, and have tried the dedicated Mac mini route. After many crashes, library's being lost on Apple upgrades, a fried internal drive as a result of trying to download Maverick, The HAP is for me. This will eliminate the mini, usb cable, MF 192 interface, Amarra and external DAC. I'm looking forward to be able to relax, forget about the latest and greatest and just enjoy the music. I will follow you music recommendations as I need to built up my classical collection.
If I may make a suggestion; that prior to sending your unit to be upgraded, download a DSD file that you own on SACD and compare the two. As DSD is what is behind SACD, this might be a better comparison than SACD to a Flac file.
uomoragno
17 posts
 
I hate to keep poking in here but it pains me to see others feel the same frustration I have had when tying to digitize classical. Hence my initial involvement in this post, I wanted to know if the Sony was up to the challenge. I have found that error is quite common, especially ripping Mahler, that some media centers will have a melt down. Here is why in IMHO: Especially with Mahler or even some of Vaughn Williams when there is a soloist or Choir singing along with the symphony orchestra. If the rip is not specific to who is the "artist" and who is the "performer", Title or they are interchanged in the track list itunes or windows media will either split the album in half or not take it at all - I would guess the reason why tranfers to the HAP are sometimes scrabled is because gracenote is guessing at what, who, when, and where or it is inconsistent. This is common when moving files to a smart phone or Ipod it is the biggest pain in the rear. Ill bet you if you look close in your ITunes its there somewhere but not under Mahler check the names of the soloist or even the conductor. When riping my Tallis scholars CDs I could not find them then I realized I found that all of a sudden I had 19 new CD's under Thomas Tallis and 10 by Peter Philips the conductor not the composer. Odd thing was I only riped 14 CDs. A close look showed that the automatic track listing of both windows and iTunes split them because different tracks listed different artists. It got worse when I moved them to a mobile device. That was a while ago and may not be a problem anymore - especially because the Tallis Scholars are somewhat well known and their metadata is more readily available. But many obscure disks are difficult to deal with. Don't even get me started on boxed sets
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
Uomoragno, Couple things. First of all, my problems with Mahler were in iTunes, not in the Sony. If iTunes doesn't get it right, the sony will import it as it exists in iTunes. I have had no instances of tracks getting screwed up in the sony as long as I stay away from wav files, provided that I have a good copy in iTunes. The sony can't reliably get wav right even if it is right in iTunes.

I think your take on why Mahler seems to be a challenge for iTunes has some merit. ITunes is totally screwed up witb how they list album titles and artists. They don't even have a single convention with respect to syntax.

That aside, the playlist function in the sony can be a way to straighten out a botched transfer, where tracks are screwed up or placed in different albums. You can create a playlist that contains all of the tracks in their correct order, even if in the album view they are all screwed up. Long term, I expect the playlist function to be my primary organizer. What I think I will do is make a playlist of my favorite versions of the Mahler symphonies, and bypass the album menu altogether.
With respect to other works, I will create separate playlists for the Belcea Quartets LvB cycle, and another playlist for the Tokyo Quartets LvB cycle.

I fear I may not live long enough to see one of these digitizing efforts work perfectly with classical. Sad, because I think about a half a dozen of us working together for 8 hours could figure it out.

I think most of use will put up with a little frustration, provided the net benefit is there. For me, it certainly is. I am recently retired, so my tolerance for things that chew up my time has increased substantially over the last month. As I have played with the sony for the last month, I find myself becoming less of an evaluator and more of an advocate. This piece sounds too good to ignore, imho. However, let me be clear. This is never going to be as easy and foolproof as slapping a cd in a player. Had I bought this prior to my retirement, I may have been one po'ed dude the first week. It is reasonably user friendly, but there is going to be a time investment. As the product continues to sell, I expect to see a robust users group develop that shares best practices. That will most certainly be a valuable resource for new buyers to leverage.
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
Erm, Thanks, very useful information. I certainly intend to run the experiment you suggest with respect to a DSD download, but I'm not sure I will get this done before the Sony ships out next week.

There is a method to my madness. While DSD was one of the primary hooks for me, since I am a firm believer in DSD (though PCM done right is pretty good), I bought the HAPZ1 as an experiment. IF it had not passed muster on user friendliness, I would not have put the additional money into the ModWright upgrade. It HAD to convince me that I could get my existing library on the hard drive in reasonable fashion, or anything further was going to be a non-starter and it would have gone up for sale. While transfer of my existing library has not been flawless, it has gone acceptably, and I am sure as I learn more it will become much smoother.

I needed to make this determination rapidly so as not to loose the intro price on the ModWright upgrade.

The bulk of my classical library is built. Additional purchases, whether hard copy or downloads, will be a minor fraction of the total library. $26 x 1600 to replace what I already own ain't gonna happen post retirement!
brownsfan OP
1,508 posts
 
Installment 3 of the stock HAPZ1 vs MW5400 comparison.
Tonight's music selection:
1) Shostakovich 10 Kitajenko/Gurzenich-Orchester Koln
I listened to the music from the beginning through about 5 minutes of the 3rd movement, first with the HAPZ1, then with the MW5400, then back to the HAPZ1 to confirm my initial impression. The music was thoroughly enjoyable through both machines. The HAPZ1 continued to exhibit its previously noted strengths. Fast attacks, articulate, detailed-- I also noted that the initial edge the MW 5400 had on dynamics has disappeared. If anything, it is now the HAPZ1 with superior dynamics. I also noted that the HAPZ1 was a little stronger (and faster) in the bass--keep in mind I'm talking 45-50Hz here (monitors). I will give this more attention when I rotate the Maggies in, but even so, we are only talking 37 Hz. The MW5400 continued to shine with respect to smooth silky, sweet strings. I also noted much more of that wonderful fruity woodwind sound from the 5400. It's the tube magic with respect to upper harmonics at work here, I suspect. This is important, because it really is so much of what draws many of us into the music. I do hope the ModWright HAPZ1 modification imparts this tube magic to the machine. Even so, I preferred the HAPZ1 by a razor thin margin.

2) Bach, Sonatas for violin and harpsichord #2. I chose this disk, because in contrast to so many harpsichord recordings, it does not sound like "Two skeletons copulating on a tin roof." The HAPZ1 brought a little more to the harpsichord, ironically, based on superior upper harmonics. Go figure. I might have preferred Ehnes' violin via the MW 5400, but again this was a tough call. Probably a toss up here overall.

So, based on what I have heard so far, if I had 2K to spend, and had my choice between a used MW 5400 and a new stock HAPZ1, which one would I choose? Sophie's choice! Don't make me choose. I'm going to have to think about this for a while.

Hopefully, I will have time to revisit some of this music with the Maggies in and the Coincidents out. I do really want to see if that fundamentally changes my take on these two machines. I'm betting not.
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