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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
brownsfan OP
1,238 posts
 
Day 4 No issues. Found I like the DSEE function with internet radio. Really just enjoyed use of and listening to the HAPZ1

I loaded some more music onto the hard drive. I also evaluated the DSEE function with the internet radio. This function is intended to restore a more natural sound to compressed files. I found it added a bit more body to the internet radio.

I don't really like the inflexibility of the file organization system, but I haven't brought a tablet into play yet. I downloaded a free flac file of the adagio from Tacacs Brahms quintet that was recently released. It is a 24 bit 96K file. Had no trouble instructing the HAPZ1 music transfer program to look in my downloads for flac files. Download from Hyperion to my computer and from my computer to the Sony was very easy. I will give this track a listen later, but I don't have the original to compare. Bottom line is that I am really happy with purchase of the HAPZ1.
brownsfan OP
1,238 posts
 
Day 5 Preliminary, totally non-scientific evaluation of file types and quick
A/B with Sony ModWright 5400.

I began with listening to the free download from Hyperion of the recent
Takacs quartet recording of the adagio from the Brahms G major quintet.
This is a 24 bit 96K flac file. I don’t own the recording (yet) but I was
interested in giving it a listen, thinking it might provide an interesting
comparison to the fairly recent Takacs recordings of Schubert and Haydn
quartets, which I do own in redbook CD. I heard the Takacs perform the
Bartok 2nd, 4th, and 6th quartets last Wednesday night, so there is a recent
live reference of the ensemble in memory. I transferred the Schubert Death
and the Maiden In ALAC and the Haydn Op 74 quartets in wav. I know, I
know, this is a completely bogus comparison, but at least it is the same
ensemble on the same label, so take this for what it is worth, which isn’t
much. In terms of sound quality, I preferred the WAV with the DSEE turned on
to ALAC and flac. Tomorrow, I’m going to see if I can transfer wav and ALAC
files of the same recording and do a more legitimate A/B on those 2 file types.
iTunes doesn’t give me the flac option, so that might end up being another
little project figuring out how to get a flac copy. Also tomorrow, I’m going to
try some A/Bs on file types with some Mahler 3.

What has more value, I think, was the A/B of the Haydn quartets using the
Haydn wav file on the HAPZ1 with the redbook CD played back through the
ModWright Sony 5400. What is immediately obvious is that the output of the
HAPZ1 is lower than the 5400. I had to turn the preamp volume knob down
2-3 steps to approximately match volume from the 2 players. At a high
level, I would say the 5400 had a bit more full bodied sound, and a bit more
oomph on low cello strings. But I thought the HAPZ1 was really more faithful
to Andras Fejer’s cello. There were a few instances where the low strings were
a bit muddled with the 5400, where they were not with the HAPZ1. There was
also maybe just a bit more sweetness in the violins with the HAPZ1. I don’t
think one can make a valid choice between the two based on one recording,
but the fact that the stock HAPZ1 can do this well, with less than 25 hours
burn in, is more than I expected.
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
1,238 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
1,238 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.
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