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
Richard, the Oppo is another machine, that in my opinion, like the HAPZ1, represents an insane value proposition. Until the HAPZ1 came along it was my intention to go the Oppo/ModWright route. I have no doubt you will not regret your decision. I would love to be able to do a serious A/B of the Modwright Oppo and the modwright HAPZ1 in my system, but that is not likely to happen. If this thread in any way helped you make your decision, then it served its purpose. The HAPZ1 is not going to be the right machine for everyone.

As for the Sony being a loss leader, I was not stating my own opinion there, just capturing comments from others. I suspect other manufacturers will emulate and improve on the HAPZ1 as time goes on.

Retirement--- it has been great. I have been extremely busy working on the house in preparation for the move. I've lost 9 lbs in the last 6 weeks and I feel terrific mentally and physically. As expected, the constant handyman drill is getting a little old, but it is associated with what is for me the ultimate prize. I'm not a flatlander. I need mountains nearly as much as I need Bach.
Best mountains in USA are Adirondacks .
Watch out for Lyme disease, can make your life a living hell !
I have always been partial to the eastern mountains, although my sampling of ranges in the western US is rather meager. I have seen the Adirondacks, but never hiked there. I bonded with the Smokies at the tender young age of 4, in August 1957. The firs were still in all their glory. We have settled on eastern Tennessee (Maryville area) as our target location. 15- 20 mile drive to the park.

In all the hiking I have done in the park, I have yet to encounter the first tick. Many bear and timber rattlers, but no ticks. Hope that continues, but once I'm hiking 1500-2000 miles a year instead of 200, no doubt I will have more unwelcome encounters.
I can remember when my dealer told me about this piece around Christmas time. I've followed the couple of threads here on Agon with interest.

But of more interest were the comments on retirement. Especially the one talking about 10 years to go. That's where I'm at and it is nice to read comments by Brownsfan that retirement has been great. And that he'd like to move to a more hike-friendly place. I too have thought of moving to Sedona AZ for just that (I'm in Orange County CA now). So all this talk of retirement brought me out of the shadows to comment. Congrats Brownsfan on retirement. I really do look forward to mine and hope to be in great hiking shape when I finally get there too.

And I really have enjoyed reading all your comments on the HAPZ1. It sounds like quite the killer for the $2k. -I have an Oppo 105 and really like it. Just two-channel use so far. Maybe someday I'll try computer audio with it.