Sony HAP-Z1ES has arrived

[Hydrology]

I'd suggest checking the metadata on the files with a program like Tag & Rename. If the image is not embedded in the DSFs, you will get a blank image with HAP. If the artwork is embedded in the DSF, the art will show.

 

I experienced some of both at first with the HAP. I now check all of the albums/files on Tag & Rename for artwork before importing into the HAP. No more problems!

 

 

Seems this thread is gone a little quiet! Obviously everyone is enjoying their Sony?!?

With regard to the above, could anyone make any recommendations for a good reliable Mac equivalent of Tag & Rename? I have quite a few of my own .DSF files which need the artwork to be embedded to pop up on the Z1ES.

Cheers.

[bmoura]

Seems this thread is gone a little quiet! Obviously everyone is enjoying their Sony?!?

With regard to the above, could anyone make any recommendations for a good reliable Mac equivalent of Tag & Rename? I have quite a few of my own .DSF files which need the artwork to be embedded to pop up on the Z1ES.

Cheers.

 

Yes, still loving the HAP-Z1ES Music Server. An excellent product and purchase!

[gstanley75]

I put one of the baby brothers in my office and I am loving it.

[Mystic]

Seems this thread is gone a little quiet! Obviously everyone is enjoying their Sony?!?

With regard to the above, could anyone make any recommendations for a good reliable Mac equivalent of Tag & Rename? I have quite a few of my own .DSF files which need the artwork to be embedded to pop up on the Z1ES.

Cheers.

 

I ended up returning mine after a few months for a full refund as I had no knowledge, and Sony likes to keep this information quite hidden that it will only support a library of 20,000 tracks, any larger and you will undoubtably keep having issues like I had.

 

From my POV there needs to be no limit on how big or small my music library needs to be.

[gstanley75]

I saw the comment on 20k files but nothing official from Sony, "trust but verify."

 

I loaded a mix of thousands of AIFF 16/44, 24/96 and 25/192 along with several hundred single and double DSD and mine stopped loading around 38,000 records.

 

I cleared everything, started over and loaded 35,000 files which it manages just fine.

[Mystic]

I saw the comment on 20k files but nothing official from Sony, "trust but verify."

 

I loaded a mix of thousands of AIFF 16/44, 24/96 and 25/192 along with several hundred single and double DSD and mine stopped loading around 38,000 records.

 

I cleared everything, started over and loaded 35,000 files which it manages just fine.

 

Sony has hidden this info to one spot in their user manual online for the HAP-Z1ES.

 

[h=1]When registering music files to the HDD AUDIO PLAYER[/h][h=3]Maximum number of music files that can be registered (operation guaranteed number of music)[/h]The HDD AUDIO PLAYER supports handling of up to 20,000 music files."

[bwillcox]

Sony has hidden this info to one spot in their user manual online for the HAP-Z1ES.

 

When registering music files to the HDD AUDIO PLAYER

 

Maximum number of music files that can be registered (operation guaranteed number of music)

 

The HDD AUDIO PLAYER supports handling of up to 20,000 music files."

 

I never understood why they would ship this device with a 1TB drive and the ability to connect an additional external drive yet only support a relative small number of tracks.

 

When I got my player and attempted to transfer about 40,000 tracks to it, it repeatedly crashed towards the end of the transfer and eventually would no longer work at all. This was even after I'd done a factory reset, deleting all of the tracks on it and then attempting to only transfer a few 100's of tracks. Eventually I was able to talk Sony into replacing it. They didn't want to at first as I had just exceeded the 90 day replacement warranty (wanted me to send it off for repair). That surprised me as well (only a 90 day warranty for replacement of a defect unit).

[Mystic]

I never understood why they would ship this device with a 1TB drive and the ability to connect an additional external drive yet only support a relative small number of tracks.

 

When I got my player and attempted to transfer about 40,000 tracks to it, it repeatedly crashed towards the end of the transfer and eventually would no longer work at all. This was even after I'd done a factory reset, deleting all of the tracks on it and then attempting to only transfer a few 100's of tracks. Eventually I was able to talk Sony into replacing it. They didn't want to at first as I had just exceeded the 90 day replacement warranty (wanted me to send it off for repair). That surprised me as well (only a 90 day warranty for replacement of a defect unit).

 

I agree, luckily I was able to return the unit to the store where I bought it 4 months after purchase using the argument that Sony never made this info public (and was only hidden deep inside the online user manual) when buying the unit and if I knew this I would of never even considered it.

[JMotzi]

I never understood why they would ship this device with a 1TB drive and the ability to connect an additional external drive yet only support a relative small number of tracks.

 

20,000...40,000...such a small number of tracks...how can anyone survive with such restrictions...sigh

[Mystic]

20,000...40,000...such a small number of tracks...how can anyone survive with such restrictions...sigh

 

Answer me this...why did Sony put a track limit on it and try and keep that fact hidden... and who are you to say how big or small someone's music library is... you sound like a very bitter person.

[JMotzi]

... you sound like a very bitter person.

 

no just trying to be lighthearted and a little bit sarcastic.......

[bwillcox]

no just trying to be lighthearted and a little bit sarcastic.......

 

Hard to be lighthearted when it happens to you. After days of enduring the slow as molasses transfer of thousands of files, having to restart the transfer several times per day due to the device hanging, and then it won't play anything, it's really hard (this is what happened to my first unit). After that experience I decided to severly restrict how many tracks I would transfer to it (at about 8,000 now) just to avoid bricking another box.

 

If they have a limit on how many tracks they can safely accomodate then they should make it a software enforced hard limit, not simply trash their filesystem.

 

I do like the HAP-Z1ES, I'm just disappointed that I can't use it as I originally intended and had purchased it for.

[Hydrology]

Sony has hidden this info to one spot in their user manual online for the HAP-Z1ES.

 

When registering music files to the HDD AUDIO PLAYER

 

Maximum number of music files that can be registered (operation guaranteed number of music)

 

The HDD AUDIO PLAYER supports handling of up to 20,000 music files."

 

This "hiding" of the "limitation" must be a geographical thing, because its quite noticeable here in the specifications on the local Australian website:-

HAP-Z1ES Specifications | Audio Components | Sony AU

 

It was one of the "imitations" I was aware of very early into considering this unit.

 

But to play devil's advocate, on the feature page found on the same site above, it does also say you can store up to 250,000 tracks on the in-built 1TB drive!!!

[Teresa]

20,000...40,000...such a small number of tracks...how can anyone survive with such restrictions...sigh

 

I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious how one gets such a large library. I have been into computer audio for over 4 years and there have been some months I've spent between $50 to $100 in downloads. According to iTunes I have 1,070 songs from 154 albums, that's 137GB dsd's and 98GB aiff's.

 

I also have 2,855 songs from 265 albums in physical formats not on my computer (SACDs, BluRay-Audio etc.) according to my Music Collector database.

 

So, if I someday load my SACDs, etc. to my computer I would have a grand total of 3,925 songs, well below the 20,000 or 40,000 limit. Thus, if my Teac DAC someday dies, it sounds like the Sony HAP-Z1ES might work for me as I doubt I will have 20,000 songs before I die.

 

According to my Music Collector database I average less than 10 tracks per album, so 20,000 tracks would come to 2,000 albums and if I figured an average price of $15 each that's a whooping $30,000. An unbelievable amount of albums and costs that will not happen in my lifetime.

 

Do some of you really have more than 20,000 tracks?

 

UPDATE: If my DSD and PCM music file size stays basically the same, I would reach 1TB at around 4,700 tracks.

[DavidL]

Hello Teresa

 

Like most here I've been interested in music since my schooldays. Apart from 200LPs I acquired over the last 40 years everything else I've bought or been given has been converted to digital files (cassettes, VHS music, LaserDiscs, DAT tapes and CDs). As a result I now have a library of 81000 tracks. As my music library has become more comprehensive (I'll never say 'complete') my current rate of acquisition has reduced to the equivalent of about 5 CDs a month (typically acquired at less than £4 each). I guess that this size of music library is not uncommon for dyed-in-the-wool music lovers.

[bwillcox]

Like you, David, I've been collecting music for a long time (about 60 years now). In 1983 I made the switch from LPs to CDs and have never looked back (it had gotten to the point where 1 in 3 LPs that I bought were defective). Currently I have about 3000 CDs, all of which I've ripped to flac files. I never bothered with the few LPs that I still have and most of the LPs that I had collected I chucked out in the mid '80s timeframe.

 

These days, in addition to still purchasing CDs (which I then rip to flac files), I am also downloading hi-res digital albums from places like hdtracks and acousticsounds as well as other locations. Currently I have about 46,000 tracks consuming 1.7TB in my digital collection. My HAP-Z1ES has an external 4TB drive connected to it, so if it was able to handle 46K tracks without destroying itself, I could but all of my music on it. Unfortunately, given my previous experience at attempting to do that, I've only been transferring my downloaded hi-res and ripped DVD-Audio tracks to it (about 9600).

 

Fortunately, my Yamaha AVRs and AVP do a fine job of playing tracks from my full collection (via my DLNA server).

 

Bob

[wwaldmanfan]

Currently, my digital library includes 1,600 albums and approx. 24,000 songs. Between 5%-10% are different masterings of the same album. I have my preferences as to which sound best, but I hold onto some of the alternates, as well.

About 75% of my files are 16/44 redbook CD rips, the rest hi-res downloads and needledrops from vinyl. Everything is coded as AIFF, and takes up about 1.3TB on my 2TB HDD's.

Admittedly, there's a lot of music here that I have not listened to in a long time.

[bwillcox]

Yeah, I have a lot of music that I hadn't listened to in a long time. However, most of the time these days I am listening to my collection (actually via a one of my Yamaha AVRS or AVP) in shuffle mode and often a track from an album I hadn't listened to in decades plays. I find that most enjoyable. The CDs sit on shelves (not to well organized these days) and simply get ignored and not played.

[Teresa]

Thanks for the replies everyone. (:-)

 

I just want to add I'm all caught up for now as there is currently nothing on my want list. There is not a single hi-res PCM or DSD download, SACD, Blu-ray Audio or Music Video I want that is in print, that I don't already own. I've spent hundreds of hours listening to streaming audio of music new to me at eClassical, Acoustic Sounds, Native DSD, HDTracks and AllMusic.com in the case of the physical formats. I have even found some decent sounding CDs.

 

I get emails from all the high resolution websites and listen to streaming audio of all the new releases as they come out, and lately I'm finding nothing I want. So I think my collection may not get much larger than it is now. Counting both computer and physical formats I have 419 albums, which is the most I have ever had since I began collecting music, 46 years ago.

[jaydee384]

Hi.

Sony going to release a new firmware that will support plugin external usb cd drive to be ripped flac straight into Z1 without a PC.

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[Hydrology]

Anyone heard anymore about this firmware update?

 

Also, I've had a problem twice now during transferring files over to the Sony (I do it in batches of no more than half a dozen at a time) where the Sony shows the countdown number of files left to "tag" but the number never goes down. Only deleting the folders that show 0 songs and 0.00 time for any found files gets the unit back on track. The first time it did it I had to delete numerous folders (which equated to about 90-ish songs) but I couldnt for the life of me find 4 files. I did a rescan (which took hours to retag the files) and nothing changed so in the end I gave up and formatted the drive (7500 songs later!!!).

The same thing happened again last night (about 3500 songs in) however i was able to delete the offending album and recopy over with no issues. Any reasoning why this may be happening? Internet connectivity was fine throughout (internet radio played fine).

Ideas?

[russellbobby]

Does the Sony support Tidal?

Thanks

[audio.bill]

No, the Sony does not support Tidal.

[russellbobby]

Thanks, Have a bud that wants one. I don't know if that is a deal killer. Possible in the future?

[audio.bill]

I suppose anything is possible and Sony has provided several firmware updates. Their latest plan is to support connection of an external CD-ROM drive to allow direct FLAC rips from CDs. Can't really predict whether they might add Tidal support at some point.