Sony HAP-Z1ES or NAD M51?

How is the DSD Remastering Engine on the HAP-Z1ES?

Gfcf, I have owned the HAPZ1 since april. The DSD remastering engine works very well. I have 900 plus albums transferred to the machine. One can turn on and off the DSD engine, and to my ears, conversion to DSD results in a noticeable improvement over flac, ALAC, AIFF, and wav files played back without conversion pretty much across the board. I can't compare the HAPZ1 to other similar devices.

Bill K is correct. The HAPZ1 was not intended to fulfill the function of a DAC. It is my understanding from Dan Wright and others that the HAPZ1 design precludes digital in, unless one is willing to accept a significant sonic compromise.

However, a digital volume control certainly could have been added. That might have been a nice feature for those who are building single source systems around the HAPZ1.

Have been listening to the Sony HAP-Z1ES for the last week. Have to say very impressed. The thing is built like a tank - weighs 30 lbs!!

Sound quality is definitely amazing - a big jump over my touch/benchmark combo - much more detailed, bigger soundstage and better low end performance. Transferring files is a pain though - almost a week for copying my 1TB collection - admittedly over wireless.

So far I am a believer! Have not tried the NAD - so can't compare - but if I am enjoying this - plus get DSD - I may just have to keep this puppy!

Hey Rmata, is the Sony warm sounding? How's the high frequency performance?

Hi GFC,

How can I describe this - definitely on the brighter side (especially with DSEE/DSD re-master on) but not in a bad way - you just hear a lot more detail on the high frequencies at least compared to the Benchmark. Overall the biggest difference is in the size of the sound stage - almost seems like a went from 2 channel to quad channel or something....hope that makes sense, as I don't have a good audiophile vocabulary :-)