Bill Allen

Gentlemen, I thought I might share a couple simple DIY upgrades to the HAP-Z1ES on this forum, take from it what you will, I will not be responding to this thread. Info is for the serious players who are wiling to do a little work to improve the sound quality without jeopardizing the factory warranty. (You can always re-install the original spinning drive) While I have done extensive mods to the Z1, these 2 mods provide what I call "essential" for maximum performance. The combination of these 2 actions will transform the HAP-Z1ES from best bang for the buck ... to ... World Class Digital IMO. 1. Install an Internal SSD. 2. Cryo treat the entire unit. (LCD Faceplate Removed) Remove the top cover and install a SSD, I recommend a 1TB Samsung 850 EVO. (2TB even bigger) Once the SSD is installed, perform a factory restore from the menu, it will format the SSD in less then 3 minutes. Yes, you must re-install all your music ... small price to pay. I can't imagine anyone not hearing the difference a SSD makes, nor not being able to perform this operation themselves. If your on a budget, you can always install a smaller SSD and add a larger spinning drive to the rear USB jack. I hear no difference from music stored on the rear USB spinning drive once an Internal SSD is installed. Once again, I am not here to argue with anyone about the benefits of an internal SSD ... try it and you be the judge. With the "latest software" you can add a USB hub & have both a CDROM & USB Hard Drive hooked up at the same time. I just tried it and it works as advertised, as does Spotify. Sound quality from Spotify ... well ... its Spotty! Tidal would have been much better 'sound quality fit' with with the HAP1ES. While Cryo treating may intimidate some novices, man up, it's really simple to do. With the top cover off, remove all the top and bottom screws that hold on the front faceplate. Unplug all the quick disconnects and set the LCD faceplate aside in a safe place, reinstall top cover. Send the entire unit to a Vapor Cryo Lab, I recommend Cryogenics International of Scottsdale AZ. You don't want to submerge in liquid nitrogen, a proper vapor process achieve's the same results without the shock effect. CI offers an in by Friday out by Monday Cryo Service. A proper Cryo treatment is a permanent process, I treated 1000's of audio products over the years with some excellent results. If there's one underlining theme ... the Better the product Pre-Cryo ... the Bigger the results Post Cryo. No No's are LCD screens, older overheated brittle electronic boards, anything with glues like speaker cones, and non-professional paint jobs can peel. Most everything else is good to go. The HAP-Z1ES is a perfect Cryo candidate, I have done 3 units with zero issue's. (Yes, you can leave the SSD inside) If you also have a Sony TA- A1ES amp, you can dunk the entire amplifier 'as-is' into the Cryo Tank. The digital readout on the front of the TA-A1ES is not a LCD ... it survives the Cryo process just fine. Don't forget to throw in all your cables while your gear's at the Cryo Lab. I have done shootouts with Cryo'd and Un-Cryo'd Sony HAP-Z1ES & TA-A1ES pair ... the differences really are amazing. The TA-A1ES amp is an amazing amp and a real sleeper in the audiophile world, Cryo takes it to a whole new level. This Cryo'd combo will embarrass systems at 10 times the price. Think about it ... for the total cost of an average audiophile interconnect cable your can permanently transform your Sony Components. Peace.

The Whole Lot of You are Insane of this forum. But this page on this thread made me laugh. Thanks!

Yes I agree. I have been using DSDx2 encoding with JRMC for over 6 months now, its clearly superior to my ears than native PCM. I did discover that you need one of the newer Mac quad cores for best results. My I5 Macbook sounds a bit rounded off in comparison, as does my 09 Mac Mini. Keep that in mind if you play around with realtime DSDx2 encoding. I've been doing DSD with a Loki, Herus, Concero HD, and spent time with a Resonessence Mirus, the finest DAC I've heard to date. Here's a review. SoundStage! Ultra | SoundStageUltra.com (UltraAudio.com) | Resonessence Labs Invicta Mirus Digital-to-Analog Converter While the Loki sounds a bit rolled off no matter what I do, the Herus is really quite good, with the Concero HD the best sounding “Budget DAC" that I’ve heard to date. For perspective, even the madman $5K Mirus sounds better to my ears using DSDx2 encoded music files. However what I’m really waiting for is a dedicated DSD DAC that does analog conversion ... without using a DAC chip, now that’s the future. At CES 2014 in the Venetian Towers I got a full tour of Korg's Audiogate 3 software, best music player I have ever had my hands on. Super Slick, Super Simple! Audiogate 3 also does realtime DSDx2 encoding of PCM, but supposedly use far less processing power as it’s fully integrated into the software. Perhaps a high power computer is no longer required. While the software is free to try, you have to have one of their DAC's to unlock the advanced DSD up-sampling feature. As much as I enjoy listening to JRMC, I have grown to hate the interface. I broke down last week an ordered the Korg DS-DAC-100 direct from Japan just to get my hands on the new Audiogate 3.1 software. Hopefully the DAC sounds as good as it looks. Features | DS-DAC-100 1BIT USB-DAC | Audio | KORG I will update this thread with my results.

I am going out on a limb here then once again turning Forest Gump. (PM me for any further information.) Yes, if you have an ultra low jitter source (most people don't) and have a "truly" high resolution stereo system (most people don't) its very easy to hear all these computer differences. I'm sorry if you can't measure it, then your your simply measuring the wrong things. Believe whatever you want ... I trust my ears. I really don't care what causes these differences as I am only looking for the end result. Killer Music! That said, my independent research concurs with Gordon's results. Here are my 8 major points of reference. 1. Recent Apple computer with Amarra Music Player 2. Boot into 64 Bit Mode 3. Operating system on the fastest SSD. (Dedicated for music only) 4. Music Library on eSata. (Every other interface degrades the sound) 5. As much RAM as your pocketbook can handle. 6. Run your computer on battery power (Especially when ripping) 7. Reformat you dedicated SSD hard drive or partition often. (Especially when installing a new copy of Amarra 2.0 ... like today.) 8. Yes it follows; a MacBook Pro iCore processor, running on battery power, with SSD and eSata music library will likely be the best sounding music computer "As the World Turns"! I just did a listening test today; Amarra 2.0 upgrade on my current SSD partition ... Amarra 2.0 on a fresh Snow Leopard SSD partition ... Amarra 2.0 on a fresh SL partition on my original spinning harddrive via eSata. No contest the fresh SSD partition smokes the upgrade SSD partition and really crushes that spinning drive. Why ... I don't care. I agree these damn computers simply have not been fast enough (or whatever) for ultimate musical playback, and even now just barely get the job done. If you can't even hear a difference in 64 Bit mode then your systems Kung Fu is way to weak. Period! Extreme enough for you??? Yes this music ripping thing has been beat to death but until you have done XLD ripping on battery power and done serious listening tests on a high resolution system then I don't care what your measurements reveal. It makes a sonic difference. Subtle yes ... but clearly obvious. "And that's all I got to say about that"

Well I tend to perform my own independent research and quit posting on forums as everyone seems to on a different plane than me. The only reason I posted here was I finally found a common thread to what my independent research has revealed. Almost exactly in this case. I am only concerned with getting closer to the sound of the original performance. Under that light I did extensive listening tests using the stock Mini ROM drive and an externally powered USB drive recommended by DB Poweramp. No contest the external drive .wav rips sounded better. With constant issues trying to transfer .wav file libraries I decided to switch to .aiff files. Here I found DB Power Amp .aiff rips didn't sound as good as even the internal iTunes .aiff rips. At this point I tried all the various OSX ripping programs. Yes at times I thought I was going crazy until I started listening to classical stings instrumental and here the differences where clearly revealed. I finally settled on XLD .aiff rips ripped from my external USB drive using a 5VDC battery power supply. Take from this what you will, your mileage may vary.

I installed a SSD, 4GB of Ram, and performed this eSata mod to my early 2009 Mac Mini over 1 year ago. Results have been fantastic with flawless operation. Here is a pictorial on how to perform this mod. http://picasaweb.google.com/baulsaudio/MacMiniMod?authkey=Gv1sRgCPmsgJje9K_E9AE# I next discovered this tweak to boot my early 2009 Mac Mini in 64Bit. http://blog.leanopen.nl/2010/04/23/doesnt-your-mac-mini-want-to-boot-in-64-bit/comment-page-1/#comment-87 I use a Pace Car USB interface with Amarra and was shocked how much better my digital sounded in 64 Bit mode. It was like going from LP to Master Tape, more of everything. Wow, this was probably the biggest one time digital upgrade ever. Best of all it was free. Recently I upgraded from 4GB of Ram to 8GB. Nice improvement, but back to the small but incremental gains. Another nice tweak with the older Mac Mini is you can cut the line lump cord and run it on LION Battery Power. With a SSD an external USB drive the Mini hardly uses any power. I am sure this is also possible with the new 2010 mini but I will wait for iCore processors before I upgrade again. Yes everything matters.

How does a person who wants to put together a high end computer audio music server start his research? Audio Asylum ... Please! Manufacture website of some unknown Exotic Products. Maybe their non-existent local dealers would be of some help. Or perhaps a person could start reading the forums here, filled with loose comments from people hiding behind fictitious monikers, and get a clue on how to put a computer audio system together? How long would that take? (Yes I have read more than enough threads here to validate my comments) So yes, I am suggesting to Chris that he offer a place for a Computer Audiophile to get valid information about the various products available by the experts that make them. Yes, a bridge if you will, to some "unabridged" product explanations and concepts from the innovators of the products themselves. All this information in one place and time would be a win win for all concerned. Jitter free digital dialog. Imagine that! Does it have to free, no, but perhaps it could be included with their paid advertisement.

Chris, Something far more interesting to me on your website would be if you offered the manufacture of digital audio products a "free post blog" on your website to describe what their current state of the art digital solutions are. How they configure for best sound, what they are currently playing with, what there configurations are, anything they wish to share. They can edit and update as they see fit without rebuttal. These folks need space and time to clarify there points without being under constant verbal attack. Of coarse there should be an open forum to correspond to each manufacture blog for questions and answers. Your thoughts?

I normally stay away from Computer Audio forums but I was just trying to get some info on Amarra, what a waste of time this turned out to be. Finally just went and got Amarra myself. Fact is nobody knows for sure what is happening inside these consumer computers that change the sound at the …Output of our DAC’s. Get it!!!! Output!!! Anyone who has done any serious listening will hear that “every” computer, "every" player, using the exact same music file …. Sounds different. If you haven’t invested “serious time and effort” than seriously …... I find it interesting how the very people that offer up hardware/software solutions are rewarded with non-constructive verbal attacks from people who have little to no actual experience with the products at hand. Gordon Rankin gave us the USB Asynchronous interface, Steve Nugent the Off Ramp and Pace Car, Vincent Sanders revealed that everything matters, power supply’s, hardware and software. With Vincent’s being instrumental in helping bringing Amarra to reality. (He doesn’t dare open his mouth here!) What do these innovators get for all their hard work … well the right to defend themselves from trolls under every bridge? (Yet without bridges how is one to get “anywhere)”. Individually these guys have all have solved large pieces of the digital puzzle, while IMO not one thing has ever been solved with the discussion on this forum. You want a valid solution that you can all pick apart without trying for yourselves. Well here you go; I put this puzzle together myself using all of the above “true innovators” ideas and products … all of them together! Get it!!! iTunes on a 2009 Mac Mini with a 5th generation SSD (you need speed, that’s what Steve’s Mini was missing), remove everything software/hardware not required to play music from the Mini, run the Mini on battery power, run a quality external CD Rom on battery, Rip bit perfect .wav files using “properly configured” XLD ripper, playback using Amarra, output into Async interface, output into Pace Car to reclock, finally output that into your Dac. Now you have yourself one very relaxed bit. (Notice I didn’t say bit perfect, I have no idea and could care less). Finally after all these years’ my computer music files are all sounding awesome and virtually the same! Even when I boot Vista via Boot Camp the files sound nearly as good with iTunes. (I just lack Amarra). So here I offer up a valid digital solution that I have been chasing for years’. Notice I say valid solution, not final. I am not going to defend it, I’m not going to elaborate any further, take from it what you will. For those of you that “get it”…. then go Get IT!!!!! For those of you that don’t ………… start picking it apart, your obviously very practiced … in "that" art. Eloise you’re a breath of fresh air in this exceedingly “male” dominated forum. However I too wish the Computer Audiophile forum/website, and all its members best of luck. “The male ego having to be “right” is the biggest obstacle to progress on this planet.”