Richard Zane

I'd like to think you are just making a joke, but I worry that you are serious. No support has been the rule for this product, and after nine years, I think fair to say no support is coming. Speculation as to whether SONY was going to support HAPZIES came and went years ago. In fact, SONY barely supported it when during the first two years, when it was, even then, nearly impossible to get any kind information let alone support. Almost all the information we had on the storage and upload times came from end users, as well as most of the work around suggestions. Now that it's nine years since the product was introduced, I think speculation regarding support is just so much pie in the sky. The Sony product was introduced for people who wanted a plug and play non-computer playback device, and no doubt Sony figured that it was not for audiophiles looking for upgrades and or people with huge music libraries. I'd suspect most power users and people looking to house larger music libraries abandoned ship on the HAPZIES years ago. It was a great product for its intended audience. Many people who purchased it didn't imagine the limitations that came along with it. During our ownership of the product, many of us reached out to Sony, only to be frustrated at the lack of support as well as the lack of interest SONY had in customer satisfaction. It's a nice package for the right type of user, who wants an all in one player with modest needs. That's all it is and that's all it will ever be. If you want more, you should move on to something else. But do yourself a favor, don't wait for SONY to introduce an update or furnish an upgrade to your HAPZIES. That's not going to happen.

Heartbreaking indeed. I would love to been able to thank him for his insights, and his ability cut through all the prevailing thoughtlessness of others but such a dignified way. He will certainly be missed.

Hi YogaMarc, I would suggest just struggling through the uploads. Bring the HAPZIES into your computer room to get the uploads done. Then take it back to your music room or run some ethernet cable into your listening room. I think the notion of buying a Windows PC is ridiculous, and if you are considering that, you might as well consider selling your HAPZIES and buying something that sounds better and also doesn't require the SONY for formatting and uploads. Of course, I am not suggesting that. You just bought the Sony, and what's more, you are satisfied with it. Learning to stop when you are satisfied is perhaps the best lesson audiophiles can learn. If you are satisfied, and can live with the upload issues, as you probably can once the bulk of your music is uploaded, then I urge you to do that. There will always be something better, and that's true now for the the very best and most expensive equipment that's out now, which is another way of saying that even if you were to upgrade to something better, that too would improve in a year or two. So that, if you are satisfied with your sound and your day to Sony HAPZ1ES interface, you almost be foolish to consider an upgrade now. Your ears will become "educated" over time, and you may want something better down the road, but it seems foolish, at least to me, to start thinking about spending more now when you are only several weeks into having the HAPZ1ES. I had my own Sony for quite a few years before I upgraded to a different DAC . Live with your Sony for as long as you are happy with the sound and ease of use. I am happier with Roon as an interface even though it is not perfect either. And I use Tidal also, but people make a lot of noise about Tidal being so great. Tidal however, even with the so called improved sound over other streaming services still falls short of the quality and musicality of the Sony. Actually, Tidal so called high-resolution files are not even close to the quality of the Sony. So I think you have consider that you have something of a good compromise with the SONY. If you want to outdo it, you will have to resell it or trade it in. You might get all of your money back on a trade-in. But a better sounding unit is going to cost way more than the HAPZ1ES, and even then you will need to store your music elsewhere, ideally on a dedicated music server that is quiet (doesn't generate a lot of noise). Remember that you are satisfied, or so you say, and don't forget that fact. If that's true, don't buy anything but music for at least for the first year or two. Enjoy, Most audiophiles don't even enjoy the music they own. They are too obsessed with what they bought or should buy. Focus on the music. I'd recommend a visit to Acoustic Sounds, or HDTracks, eClassical, Hyperion Records, Presto Music, or NativeDSD, ProStudiomasters, Audite. Spend your money there at least for the time being.

"better in many other ways, especially the bass, so much so that if I decide to keep the Sony I may change out the Mullard tubes." I have had a good experience with Shuguang Black Bottle (that's a premium version of the Shuguang tubes), and the bass is very tight, and the entire midrange and top is quite open with a good deal of dimensionality. You might give those a try. I would say the only downside to them is that they have a rather long run-in time before they sound their best. I've countered this by just finding a time when I am going to be away from home, and running them in while I am gone. To the point, I think you will be impressed with the low end after break-in is complete. I used to be skeptical about break-in times, but having a low noise system with clean power, and a heck of a lot of resolving power does present one's ears with undeniable proof that things are different. Yes, I know the skeptic's argument that one's ears have gotten used to the new tubes and don't find them as objectionable as when they were first plugged in. But there have been more than several instances where my spouse has walked in (and not heard the new tubes or listened during the break-in) and remarked with great surprise: "What did you do? Sounds different, more ... musical." So yeah, you can't judge the Shuguang Black Bottle tubes out of the gate, but I do think you will like the tight low end, and everything else about then also. I only say might because, as we all known, there are so many differences between systems and rooms, etc., that it's quite impossible to speak with certainty. I do think these tubes are known, however for a tight low end (once broken-in). Speaking of bass, what do you listen to when checking your low end tightness? Aside from sheer joy of listening to Ray Brown albums, do you have Tony Overwater's "Upclose" on Turtle Records? It's acoustic bass and saxophone, very well recorded as many Turtle and Spirit of Turtle records are. best, r.

"When you had the PS Audio Directstream on hand, did you try outputting the Sony to the Directstream via USB, thereby using the Sony interface with the Dwrrectstream DAC? Any thoughts on that approach?" There is only analogy outputs. You can't use the DirectStream with the Sony as a DAC for the Sony. besides, and as for the Interface, the PS Audio is currently a supported Roon Endpoint. I don't know why you would want to use the HAPZ1ES for that purpose. Certainly not as a control device. And as for storage would make sense on an SSD drive, either in a good quality server or just on an EXTERNAL SSD drive. For those of us with great tube amplification on hand, the Modwright was as apealing and had no allure. But I could see it when using the Sony with solid-state products.

Love Mac Tube amps and preamps. Have some myself and don't feel tempted by anything else, and although I have had many amps in the past, including many solid state amps and even some humongous Audio Research Tube gear, I keep coming back to McIntosh. Was very happy with the sound of HAPZ1ES, and also likewise with the PS Audio with the McIntosh amps. Never used McIntosh in the studio only in the home. One of the engineers that I was fortune enough to mentor with briefly at Eastman School of music (Phil Ramone) was also a McIntosh guy. He didn't use them in the studio either, but he did also have them in his home. He was not only a great producer and engineer but also a violinist. He wanted his music to sound musical. That's what the McIntosh amps sound like ... musical. Best to keep the signal somewhat neutral. I found the sound of the HAPZ1ES fairly neutral, and the sound of the PS Audio even more so. I wouldn't characterize either as sounding steely or thin. Contrary to what some had found with earlier firmware versions of the PS Audio, I found the PS Audio had a more palpable midrange tonality than the Sony but ... again, the Sony is really magnificent considering how less expensive it is. and I was never suggesting that simply because I was very impressed with PS Audio that I lost my enthusiasm and appreciation for the Sony. By the way, what tubes tubes have your tried in your 275?

Yes, while I still had my unit, I developed quite a few white lines. I eventually sent it back for repair. They fixed it relatively promptly and with no side effects or issues. It's covered by the five year warranty. After that, I think fixing it might a bit pricey since they replace the screen.

"Sony's decision to ignore streaming services beyond low-rez Spotify is mystifying" Dave, Sony makes far more money selling vinyl, CDs and downloads (and DVDs and BluRay) than they do selling audio equipment. From that vantage point, it's not so mystifying that they don't support technologies that drive or further their competition. The division that HAP products comes from is just the tip of the Sony iceberg. They do have long established and respected roots in the professional audio business, via their professional audio products, such as their legendary professional high SPL low distortion and extremely neutral microphones which are faster than most legendary German microphones. But it's also just a small fraction of Sony does. I am sure if you asked many Sony executives and field managers about the Sony professional microphones they would think you were making a mistake about Sony being in the professional microphone market. It's a big big company. Nothing surprises me about Sony. It's just too big for its own good. One reason, I think, that not only the R&D but the customer service and support was somewhat subpar. - R

Yes, yes!! I agree, Richard. The Sony shouldn't be compared to the more expensive DACs that are way beyond it's price point. When I wrote about the fact that I have a PS Audio unit, I wasn't trying to suggest that people should get it instead of the Sony. And even though I think it's is perhaps a little more fair to compare the Sony with the Mod to the DirectStream Junior, the difference between these gets lost depending upon the associated equipment used with them if the equipment doesn't have a high degree of resolving power. The Sony is really represents a LOT of bang for the buck, no question. And it's not really appropriate to create the doubt in people's minds that they would be losing a lot by not upgrading from the Sony. I am aware of the differences, but not every can hear or even cares to distinguish the differences beyond a certain point. I would urge anyone reading this thread who very keen on Tidal or any of the so called high end streaming devices to experiment more with well recorded rebook CDs and 16Bit and 24Bit Flac downloads. They aren't all noticeably better than Tidal, but the well recorded ones really sound better than what you can stream. And especially if you only have a couple of hundred CDs in your library, the odds are probably with the fact that you don't own that many well recorded CDs, because there are way more poorly engineered CDs than there are well produced ones. Want to hear a great sounding CD? Take a listen, if you have never heard it, to The Steve Davis Project Quality of Silence CD ... if you can find one somewhere. Or, perhaps, the very old Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section on CD (You can also find that on DSD BUT the point is that it's survives very well on CD. The point of may previous post was not so much that DACs as about the surprising high quality of some rebook audio CDs. So I simply was trying to suggest listening toa regular CD of it for a sense of what's possible with 16bit rebook). And as I said, there are many very well recorded 16bit downloads at Hyperion that sound as good as any expensive high resolution file. I wanted to stress this, because until you compare a well recorded 16bit CD to what you can get from a 16Bit Tidal stream, or any other supposedly high resolution stream, you don't really comprehend that Tidal has a way to go before it's really in the realm of being so good that people would actually consider ditching their Sony for Tidal. People make a big stink about Tidal, and it's good, and I listen to it from time to time. But I don't listen to it in general if I already have the item in my library. The MQA versions of some CDs do not excel the quality of well recorded 16bit rebook file. That's just where we are right now. Maybe it will change, but we aren't there yet. Kuddos to Kelly200269 for responding to the statistics that show streaming on the rise and the shrinking of album sales, and pointing out how hard it has been to make money with streaming. This is because we have started down a road where people are beginning to feel that music should need to be purchased; that it should be free. You can't have free music and expect the great music to prevalent in our lives. It has to be paid for somewhere along the line, especially to the musicians and composers who make the music that gets recorded. We don't live in a world where the government subsidies music (like Ireland does with theatre). It would be nice, but we don't live in that world. Unless someone figures out how to compensate musicians who stay home and practice and stay agile in their performance, it will have an impact on what is available. Tidal does a better job than other services, but let's face it, we still need to find a way to support musicians especially when they aren't famous and haven't become household names. It's a serious problem. Hope it gets solved. One way to solve it is for us to continue to buy music from time to time. That would go a long way towards solving that problem. Therefore, I want to encourage some of you to go a site like Presto Music (I have no relationship with them whatsoever, by the way ... only as a client). They used to be known as Presto Classical but now sell Jazz albums too , so they are now known as Presto Music. You can download or by actual CDs from them. I mentioned the Hyperion web site. You can buy from them directly, and they even sell music, much like NativeDSD, by offering music on CD or download ... and either by track or the entire album. I am fascinated by the work their engineers (and piano technicians) do. I used to be a recording engineer back in the t970s, and it is a very difficult task to get pianos recorded without having major issues. A lot of what passes as audio gear just not bing up to the challenge of playback of the modern piano is simply that many just don't have any idea how to record the piano. They do at Hyperion. Not everything is well recorded (they have a huge catalogue), but a lot of is exceptionally well done even the 16bit offerings As I was trying to suggest, there are many well recorded 16bit recordings that sound heck of better than many 24bit ones but they undisputedly sound way better than streaming sounds. If you aren't convinced, you might trying expanding that music library of yours so that a little more of it resides on your hard drive.

As I was saying, there will always be another piece around the corner that will improve on the last piece you purchased. This is not cause for regret. On the other hand, it's best to not fall into the ... "IF I ONLY HAD IT, I'd be HAPPY" and I say that for several reasons. One is it will break your bank, and that has many downsides, and two, it's not true because nothing is going to be perfect no matter how much you spend. True, the you get closer to the 'Illusion" that the real instruments are spread out before you" but in my experience, and I have a lot of it (as I am probably old enough to be your grandfather and started living with high end audio when I was just a wee lad of sixteen (due to an accident and lawyer, - and he could have been better, the lawyer, I mean) ... one is not likely to ever get to the point where you don't hear something that you feel is not quite satisfying enough about the illusion> It's hard to hold this in your mind at those times when you suddenly see a pathway to buying that improved piece of gear. For those of us whose life is music, should you figure out a way to buy it, you are likely to end up with it. But at this stage of the game, one needs to remind oneself that it's not going help conclude the quest for something better. I will give you a long winded example below. The PS Audio has been interesting because Ted Smith, the designer, who is a genius of monumental proportions, figured out that he update the firmware and what the Direct Stream does with the signals by upgrading the firmware, and started releasing firmware updates which were distributed for free. I think at first, people were skeptical. I was one of those skeptics, I'll admit because back in 2014, the PS Audio had some attributes that noticeably better than the Sony but also some attributes that were not, and it was easier to to sit on the fence and be happy with the Sony. But as time went by, Ted Smith kept working and releasing free updates, and after awhile, the DirectStream was pretty much a Sony Slayer on many fronts. It remains so today. However, it's come to the attention of the world that Ted has been silently working on a signature edition of the DirectStream, his own hyped up version. Of course, it's not surprising that push the envelope, one has to be quite a bit more meticulous in the physical world in order to achieve things that perhaps that firmware alone cannot provide. So undoubtedly, it will be very interesting to see what this genius designer does to push the envelope on the direct stream, and how much more expensive the new box will be. I don't think we know as of yet. It's still in development, and might be so for some time. Who knows! But I am sure many a fan of the DirectStream will be more than curious as to what is possible when pushing the physical envelope of the DS. No doubt, when you have a bigger budget and can throw more at a problem, you can eek out a pathway to achievement of something just out of reach (of the previous concepts ... which were probably hamstrings by budget in the first place). And so on and on it goes. The sane thing to realize is that there will always be a designer looking to push the limits and stretch the budget. There are pieces out there, even now, that because of unrestrained budgets have pushed the envelope beyond the current DirectStream. I'd say the DirectStream is reigning champion under $10k, but it's not really under 10K really because you should have clean power to make it sing, and you should use great cables, and you should use a music server. You can use a Nucleus server but it's bested by the Melco and others out there, which means to wring out more of what the DirectStream can do, you best have an above average server. But, yes, out of the gate, it bests the Sony without using a server, even a Nucleus. I think you find that most serious reviewers who have listened to everything under $10-$20k agree, and most frequently own a PS Audio Directstream themselves or at least go to it when testing would be competitors. And I should mention that several non-commissioned audio salesmen who know the Sony well have said that even the DirectStream Junior eats the Sony for breakfast. Look, it's not surprising. It's an evolving product and while the Sony is very very good, and remarkable for the money, I'd say, it was only a matter of time, if the Sony rested on its laurels, that it would fall behind I don't think, by the way that it was ever meant to be a State-of-the-Art chaser of a product. People buy it because they one a one box solution to plug in an forget about. I had a lot of friends who wanted my unit where in the music biz in one way or another. I ended up trading it in to their chagrin. The SONY is a a honey of a deal. We shouldn't regret it's purchase. It's so so sensible of an audio buy for many people who aspire to improving their home audio. There has been discussion of rebook audio here in this forum, and I have to admit that although the DSD and all versions of FLAC sound really good on the DirectStream, the area where it tickles my fancy most is how good the DirectStream makes regular non-high resolution files sound. If, like me, you don't buy music simply because it's high resolution but because you love the artists who make the music, you will be amazed at how musical the so called shlock low res files sound. This is obviously also true when listening to Tidal also via the Bridge card that runs Roon on the DirectStream and is capable of MQA. I am not saying that I buy into MQA or even that I buy into Tidal. They are not where they need to be yet and listening to a good, well recorded and well engineered CD from that was recorded by Wally Heider or Rudy Van Gelder, or someone more recent, like many of the very fine engineers at Hyperion Records in England who know exactly how record solo piano in particular or small intimate string trios (as in the recordings of the Florestan Trio ... all rebook by the way) will slay any TIDAL without or without MQA ... because the people who recorded those instruments were at the top of their game. Garbage in, garbage out. But yeah, for me, the PS Audio was worth the investment because I already had a rather sizable library of Jazz and ("Classical") music that I thought was more or less subpar but learned, via the DirectStream that it was a lot better than I thought it was. When you have over $20k of music sitting on the shelf or in boxes, it's not really so much of a stretch to consider spending another 3 to 4K for a DirectStream what will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck when you listen to those so called old "subpar" recordings, and realize they may not be as subpar as you thought. For most people, with $10 to $20k systems, the difference of what resolves by spending the extra money may not be as noticeable as it may be for those with systems with more resolving power. It's not like any of this is to recommended as a no-brainer ad hoc purchase because so and so says it's closer to the real thing. Yes, it's closer to the real thing, I'd say. But it's not the real thing. We aren't there. We may never get there. I've been in audio a very very long time. I know a good many of the people who are famous in the field, and quite a few who should have become more famous, and didn't. I'd say we are closer to the illusion of the real thing. But if you go to concert hall or any of the small venues where you hear without much effort who's got playing the 2 million violin, or whose strings need changing or an uptick, then I think you would have to say that we have a long way way to go baby, even with all the years of development we have us. it's all a compromise, and we need to just embrace the music when we listen and get swept up it (the music). If we fail in that, then we are missing the point entirely. IF it were me, and I were fussing over having good streaming or not, and I loved good sounding audio (which I always have ... perhaps a little more than the average listener), then I would suggest taking several thousand dollars and buying some we recorded music. Even the Hyperion recordings or any of the Rudy Van Gelder Jazz recordings (any of them at all) will slay the sound most so called high-res streaming on Tidal or MQA Tidal, even playing it on iTunes using the output headphone jack on your computer. Non-garbage in very less garbage out. It's just the way it is.

Obsolete for whom? For someone who has over 1-3 TB of music in their library already, streaming is not really an indispensable part of future listening. With well over 3000 digital albums, and therefore, not including LPs, listening to everything only once would take quite number of years (at least four based on four hours a day of listing. More than four a day of music listening would be very unusual since I don't have music playing all the time in the background. If you one calculates that figure at two full hours a day of listening, which is a lot for many people, one ends up spending over eight years listening to everything ... only once. Actually, I often listen an album way more than once, especially when I am getting to know a piece after first discovering it. Listening to every three times we are now up to 16 years to listen to everything in the library. Right? Right. Yes it is quite a luxury to have so much music that one has chosen to listen carefully. So many great artists that are KNOWN. Sure it's fun to explore and find new people. I still do that. But I happen to know about quite a lot of great musicians. I know who they are. And I want to be able to hear them play my favorite composers. I am not alone in this. This is what keeps many record in business. Thank goodness, or you wouldn't probably much to stream either. Still it's far from offering everything that I listen to at the moment. Perhaps it will one day. We aren't there yet. Streaming libraries still are providing enough variety to satisfy my musical interests. Your point about Redbook seems a fair one. When I first purchased the Sony, I was quite disappointed when listening to many of the Redbook CDs in my music library, especially when comparing them to the higher resolution files in my library. In my case, replacing the Sony with a PS Audio DirectStream more than convinced me that many of the Redbook audio CDs were way better than I thought. Of course, that the DirectStream sounds better on all formats including Redbook audio shouldn't be a big surprise. The darn thing costs three times more than the Sony. And there are ways to improve the experience even more, by better cleaner power, for example, adding a quality music server like a Melco or something more exotic. Go ahead, throw a $30K or $60K state of the art digital music player and a six to ten thousand dollar music server. Better? Yes, sure. Perfect? No, nothing sounds like the real thing. Right? But before we get too far afield it's best to remind ourselves that the biggest factor of all in improving the sound of our recordings, be they analogue or digital is how successful or unsuccessful the recording engineers and music producers have been at meeting the challenges of presented by the performers, their instruments and the environment in which we are recording. All this is way more important than the format. It's so easy to forget this speak about how a particular piece of gear has made our digital Redbook audio less fatiguing. On the other hand if you have met the recording challenges head-on, listening fatigue ends up not really being the factor we often regard it as being. We often regard issues as being a result of the gear, when the things that vex us most about the sound quality are often a result of the listening environment and, stepping back, the recording environment. Let's remember to include that in our discussion, because it will temper us from speaking in absolutes with regard to audio gear. So many factors interact with the record/playback experience that it is very difficult to accurately know exactly know what is going on. So best not to speak in absolutes about what is certain. Glad you are happy. And if you are listening to more music than ever before, things are definitely on track.

Future proof? We are just at the beginning of the evolution of digital audio, and it is rather odd that anyone would imagine that even just five years down the road from all that we regard as the best gear won't be surpassed on a number of fronts. The question will be the cost, of the improved gear. I have moved on from using the Sony, but I have spent considerably more to surpass its sound quality, and we have to remind ourselves that not everyone is going to be willing to drop two to four times as much money as the Sony. I will say that even with the best gear, Tidal and other streaming music is not as good as native high resolution files sound on the HAPZ1ES, so while I understand why people want to stream in order to explore new frontiers of music (at least new to them), I think people shouldn't necessarily condemn high res playback because it doesn't have Tidal. The streaming thing is great to have to explore and learn about new artists, but let's not get carried away calling it high fidelity. That's a bridge too far for me (even with my PS Audio Direct Stream, pun intended).

As I have said many times, the Sony is a great bargain with or without the 1TB of storage, and there are many pluses to its simplicity too, and with all the things which one doesn't have to worry about. But, it would be a mistake it as the one to beat, because there are, frankly, units that cost more than the Sony that do bring simultaneously both more detail and more musicality and probably various improvements to placing the instruments more accurately in space, and with more palpability and believability. Let's not get carried away here. The Sony is extremely listenable, but it's not the holy grail. If you want to prioritize sound, you can improve on the Sony, but you have to spend more money to do so. Sony probably won't endorse Tidal because it is somewhat of a competitor. Sony is a large entertainment company and owns a lot of record labels. It's own label, SONY, isn't too shabby either. It's difficult to know how profitable the SONY HAPZ models are. I am sure the product line adds prestige to Sony. But when it comes to making money Sony Music and it's other music and entertainment companies pay the bills and keeps the lights on. The convenience you are asking for is the convenience to be able to rent music from a competitor (Tidal is competitor selling music entertainment), and it even has attempts to make contractual agreements with artists directly, something Sony also is the in the business of doing ... on their own terms. If either Sony or Tidal were not contracting with performers, the situation might be different. But they both are doing that. So the match seems less than likely. It seems clear that you place a premium on sonic performance. That being so, it seems appropriate to mention that Tidal doesn't offer the same high quality as the Sony HAPZ playing local digital files. Anyone can hear the difference between streaming from Tidal and listening to the file playing from the HAP or DAC. The difference is audible, occasionally subtle depending upon what on is comparing, but by and large, for most well recorded albums, you can easily hear the difference between the two sources. And it's not usually as subtle difference. Being that I use Roon now, it's easy for me to switch between my Roon file library and the Tidal library. So easy, in fact, that it literally takes three quick clicks of the mouse to switch between the Roon File Library and the Roon/Tidal versions. I can listen to files in the Tidal Library and do, but if I have the same file in my Roon File Library, I am sure to want to listen to that version. There's no question which one is preferable. If sonic quality is important to you, and you value having the experience of listening to the music you love sounding as good as the Sony (or other DAC) can make it, you owe it to yourself to spend a lot of your musical listening, not streaming, but in listening to your own library of purchased music. I like the idea of supporting musicians thru Tidal, and that's one reason I'm a member, but I also like the idea of supporting record companies too. Hyperion Records is a good example. Few record labels know how to record piano as well as Hyperion does. Of course, they have vast catalog of piano music, and many many great pianists. Listen to the Piers Lane Scriabin in 16bit, or any of the Marc Andre Hamelin recordings, of those of Howard, Shelly, Leslie Howard or Stephen Hough. Most, if not all of their 16Bit piano recordings sound better than most other companies 24bit or DSD piano recordings. Why? Because they know what they are doing. There are no accidents when it comes to consistently good piano sound. It just doesn't happen unless you know what you are doing. I appreciate that commitment to excellence, and I like the idea of supporting Hyperion for their high standards. The idea that I can support both the artists and labels they record for by buying "direct" is a plus. Tidal isn't a panacea. Some things sound okay and sometimes pretty good. It may offer more than other streaming, but it's still not as sweet as I think your dreams of it are.