Sony HAP-Z1ES‎ music streamer/DAC review

polkfarmboy

Being a new audiophile or since joining this forum I am still discovering tracks and gear so I still consider myself a novice. There aint that much ultra HD resolution tracks that are to my liking either. I still love alot electronic music and its hard to get hold of so my lil sonys all empty.

SCompRacer

halenhoang wrote: »

It all comes down to personal preferences, it is not a knock on anything or anyone. Ultimately, it is not about a badge that is placed on a product, really. I just noticed a trend of what sounds good is based on statistics, 24 bit, 32 bit, etc. How about we just sit, listen and enjoy.

No worries here.

All my life I have strived to have a fuller understanding of whatever I am dealing with. Shooting, hunting, my job, computers, photography, racing, audio, getting along with the wife....lol. Some say it ruins the fun, to me I always got better at what I was doing and enjoyed it more.

BlueFox

Emlyn wrote: »

erniejade wrote: »

Elmyn from what I have been reading the sony also has a 20k limit. The other thing I wish it would do is be able to take a "normal pc " formatted drive and hook it to the back for uploading.

I loaded 25K tracks on mine and found any tracks above the 20K database limit "confused" the player. Speed of track access seemed to be fine with that many files loaded into it, but it would not show the right cover art for tracks loaded after the 20K boundary was reached. Some of the tracks were also randomly spread in different folders than where they belonged after the 20K limit. I backed out several thousand files I was unlikely to ever listen to. Bear in mind though, that all of my tracks are in WAV format, including a lot of high resolution PCM tracks from HDtracks. At around 19K files, I'm still only using around 750GB. I did load a 2TB onto it through the USB port and it worked fine, but I just haven't needed to use its extra capacity so disconnected it.

I guess the solution to get around the 20K limit is to buy two!

I wonder if the issue is not the number of tracks, but HD space used. If the files were in FLAC would it still be 20k, or now 40k?

Either way, it sounds like a firmware bug, which should be easily fixed.

Lockout

Emlyn wrote: »

Only negative I can think of right now is that there is a very slight audible hum coming from the area where the hard drive is located. Not audible beyond a few feet though.

Hello Emlyn,

I have recently ordered a HAPZ1ES and recognized the mentioned hum myself.
So I've returned the first unit and got another one in exchange - still again with the same hum. The spare device has a different MAC address, however still very close to the MAC address of the previous unit.
Now my question: Have you meanwhile discovered the root cause for the hum? Or got rid of it - even with support from Sony?

Thanks,
Andreas

Emlyn

The slight hum from the hard drive is the result of their decision to use a disc based drive. I am aware some users have put a solid state drive in instead. The hum on mine is not audible from sitting distance, so it doesn't bother me enough to do something to change the drive.

Moose68Bash

Skip's advice is right on. Only an SSD will get rid of the noise.

mantis

I had one here for a while and didn't notice any hum. Then again I was in my rack with the door closed and I sit 14 feet away from it.
The SSD drive no matter Hum or not is the way to go. SSD drives are amazing.

jbreezy5

Come forth zombie audio thread. Ahh…

I’ve been looking at used Hap Z’s for my office rig, but have seen a lot of complaints from buyers about set-up and incompatibility with Apple/ios.

Does anyone still have this, and can you confirm whether the app still works with iPhone or not?

I would be using a wired connection. Would there be any formatting changes that have to take place for the file transfer?

Emlyn

I liked mine enough to buy a second to use in my home theater system. Replaced the internal drives with a 2 TB SSD after the warranty was up and supplemented with an external USB hard drive. The control app still works with an iPad which is how I control mine over WiFi. They can also be used with an external DAC but I haven’t felt a need to do that.

The original and still valid complaint about them is the amount of time it takes to move a large library onto their drives because of the way the file transfer system limits speeds. Simply doesn’t transfer reliably without a direct physical connection to a router. YMMV but I found mine to sound slightly smoother by converting some WAV files to DSD in JRiver before loading them.

The dual power supplies in these things are really over built. These things are heavy and I have had zero reliability issues with mine. If I remember right they also got internet radio at some point, but I haven’t tried that for years, and provide the ability to rip directly to the hard drive.

Sony has had these in the market for a surprising amount of time with nothing but firmware updates.

Emlyn

Note I have had about 40 thousand tracks on mine for a few years all in WAV format with some high res and DSD tracks. Once they’re loaded speed is good. It just takes three days to load everything from a computer.

😳

Clipdat

jbreezy5 wrote: »

Come forth zombie audio thread. Ahh…

I’ve been looking at used Hap Z’s for my office rig, but have seen a lot of complaints from buyers about set-up and incompatibility with Apple/ios.

Does anyone still have this, and can you confirm whether the app still works with iPhone or not?

I would be using a wired connection. Would there be any formatting changes that have to take place for the file transfer?

I would think unless you can get one for very cheap, it would make more sense to put whatever money you're going to spend toward something more modern.

Emlyn

Video on easy upgrade possibility...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5aFrLryZcg

jbreezy5

Clipdat wrote: »

jbreezy5 wrote: »

Come forth zombie audio thread. Ahh…

I’ve been looking at used Hap Z’s for my office rig, but have seen a lot of complaints from buyers about set-up and incompatibility with Apple/ios.

Does anyone still have this, and can you confirm whether the app still works with iPhone or not?

I would be using a wired connection. Would there be any formatting changes that have to take place for the file transfer?

I would think unless you can get one for very cheap, it would make more sense to put whatever money you're going to spend toward something more modern.

Is there something wrong with it?

This measures superbly per the Stereophile review, and in terms of sonics haven’t seen a single negative comment; quite the opposite.

I like how overbuilt it is and the idea of using this in place of a CD player in my office set-up.

jbreezy5

@Emlyn - Is the app “HDD Audio Remote” in the Apple App store?

Emlyn

I boxed up about 3,000 CDs after taking them out of their cases a couple years ago and stuck them in a few bins in a closet.

Emlyn

jbreezy5 wrote: »

@Emlyn - Is the app “HDD Audio Remote” in the Apple App store?

Yes, still there. I have an older iPad that topped out at iOS 12.5.5 so I don’t know if it may have issues with a newer iPhone or iPad if they are using a different iOS firmware version.

gudnoyez

Is this not the thread where PFB was posting pictures of this while sitting on the sh..ter

txcoastal1

gudnoyez wrote: »

Is this not the thread where PFB was posting pictures of this while sitting on the sh..ter

That was crazy...but maybe that was his best chair...IDK but was funny

gudnoyez

Yep sure as s..t during the his morning dumpage. Tony Bs response was classic I never laughed so hard in my life. Of all the old threads to be revived it had to be this one, to the person that revived this um yeah seek out something more current.

jbreezy5

People post about Schiit all the time. What’s one more. 😂