wormcycle

Agree, that why I sold my HAPZ1ES a year ago, although I think the build quality and the SQ of HAPZ1ES is incredible for the price. The only competition to streaming is better streaming.

I do not remember Tidal advertising streaming in what you call high resolution presumably 96 and higher. And that what the post was about. 44.1 has very little to do with the file format. It is good enough sampling rate to reproduce full range of hearing frequency. Doe not matter how it is packaged.

Have no idea what you are listening to and how you setup your streaming quality.When I set it to Hi-fi or Master everything I plays shows as 44.1 or 48 on my DAC. You do not have to care for Tidal, just stick to the facts.

I sold mine only because I got tired of waiting for Tidal. And I think Sony sold way less of HAP-Z1ES because of this. To bad because it is a great digital player.

Z1ES is a fantastic sounding device, I use it's with dual mono Nuforce headphone amps and I love it but... I will ditch it for whatever price I can get if Sony will not come up with the framework to use it as DLNA renderer in six months, and/or if they do not stream Tidal. It is just a total waste to have a DAC of the Bryston BDA 2 level of quality and be able to use it to play only your own CDs or downloads.

This is pretty amazing picture, If you buy 8 ports hub you could add 7 useless iSilencers and reduce the noise even further. How about... not having a hub in this picture?

Very timely note as today was the first time when I used the HAPZ1ES balanced out to a Bryston preamp (actually BHA 1 with preamp out). Even though my power amplifier balanced input seems to be there only for convenience (Emotiva XPA-2) the improvement of sound quality was evident. Cannot say if this is Sony balanced output or Bryston, could not compare it with any other preamp, but I was sublime. By the way buying HAPZ1ES was the best decision about my audio system I ever made. I was able focus on my music instead of on regenerating USB...

What are you talking about? Clock jitter is the very definition of jitter in audio.

The box will be more quiet, although the stock hard drive is already pretty quiet. I do not questions your conclusion but exactly do you think that it will cause less jitter? Jitter is related to timing variations in different sampling clocks in audio system. What does it have to do with SSD or not SSD?

I haven't had any problems with the unit in a year I have been using it. My music library is not huge, roughly 12000 files and initial transfer went well, adding music and synchronizing does not present any problems. I have music in FLAC, WAV, DSD, and other formats. What I like the most is simplicity of the function and superb sound quality. I wanted a single purpose high quality music server and it's exactly what I got. I used both balanced and unbalanced outputs connected to a good class A headphone amp (unbalanced) using T5p Gen 2 and HD600 headphones, and to passive preamp (balanced). Great sound from both. I continue to read exciting reviews of $1k+ USB cables, USB purifiers etc ..but I have no need for any of those. Any issues I had with connectivity were solved when I moved all my devices to a single wi-fi network. The weakest point of the whole setup is the Sony's HDD application. It runs only on some versions of Android ,stopped working on my Samsung S5 after Android upgrade, and sometimes has interim problems connecting to the unit. Also initially I was a bit annoyed because I could hear the internal drive but I turned off the fan from the maintenance menu and it is almost quiet no. Nothing gets hot with the fan turned off. Eventually I will replace the drive with SDD, but I am afraid of loosing 5 year warranty. Other then the HDD app I am pretty happy with HAP-Z1ES.

7th is my absolute favorite

I have seen a few posts from people who already replaced the internal drive. Can you please post the steps how to do it? Where is it located and what's the best way to get to it. Sorry for maybe silly questions but I want to put SSD into HAP-Z1ES my skills are pretty limited in this area.

I assume that when you wrote "Zies is a great product but does not match the ultimate sound quality of a properly setup PC" you actually had a chance to compare.Yes?

I just received my HAPZ1ES today and was completely surprised how big and heavy it is. The setup took 15 minutes and only because I was very careful to check everything. 90% of my music is wav anywhere from 16/44 to 192/24. I ripped most of it myself using EZCD converter. Network connection: Sony unit is connected with cat 7 cable to very old NETGEAR 3DHD Wireless Home Theater Networking Kit WNHDB3004, which is connected to my main router. Sony thinks it is wired. It is transferring right now roughly six tracks per minute, all my carefully edited tags are making it so far to HAPZ1ES. It is replacing DAC Magic 100 and is connected to custom TA2020 amplifier and full range driver speakers with custom made cabinets. Probably the cheapest setup that ever appeared on those pages. Clarity of the sound, even playing 44/16 CD is nevertheless amazing, and the speakers bass sounds like never before. So far so good. I will probably upgrade the whole gear up from HAPZ1ES in the next 12 months but I think I started with the right piece.

"I replaced internal hard drive to 2TB slim Seagate, and added a 4TB external USD WB my book" I am about to order HAP Z1ES bot one of the issues I have is that I read in Sony documentation that you cannot actually replace internal hard drive, or you need Sony to do that. And you actually did it. Can Z1ES recognize the replaced HD without any problems? Are there any specific steps one need to follow?