Sony HAP-Z1ES Hard Drive Upgrade Tutorial

I just finished a tutorial with lots of pics on how to upgrade the internal hard drive. Just Google "Sony HAP-Z1es hard drive upgrade, HiFiInsider". Hope it'll help someone here to enjoy this great server further.

 

Hope you don't mind if I take this thread a wee bit off topic, but you seem to be knowledgable about the HAP player. Just wondered if there was an upgrade to improve the sound quality ?
For me, it's sound quality as put it in the back-ground music only function.
Thanks

 

Wow! really? What's your reference point, dCS DAC/transport and Boulder amps? Very interesting...

I say a proper power cord and audio cables is a must for HAP-Z1es. I'm using Nordost Heimdall2 on my entire system. Not ultra high-end, but high enough for my wallet.

 

Ayre DX5 player, some times run it through an Audio Research DAC8. Yup, the Hap is a few steps down, but I'm not knocking it as it's very cool, but as an audiophile a loss of sonic's is always a bummer.

 

I agree. You can really optimize this player w/ Interconnects and power cords. I was especially surprised by positive changes w/ upgraded power cords.

 

Yup, that kind of goes without saying for almost all audio components.

 

I would be interested in this if I saw them on clearance for under $1K.

 

I'd buy two more at that price.

 

Your experience in sound far exceeds the Sony's capabilities...

For $2K, the Sony is no slouch IMO.

 

Ever since I scored a new-in-box Sony UDA-1 for $200, I keep thinking we might see Sony unload some of their other high end gear at >50% off.

 

My biggest concern with this unit are the transport buttons on the front panel. There is no other way to control the unit if and when these buttons fail, especially the ENTER button. I encourage everyone to write Sony or give the HDDAudio app a negative review in iTunes or Google Play Store and point this out in your review. Maybe that will get their attention...

Does anyone know what exactly the unit does when you IMPORT CD using the Slow operation? Is SLOW audibly better than FAST? I have brand new CDs that would have errors when using Slow, but it sorts itself out after a few tries.

 

Are we expecting these front panel transport buttons to fail at a higher rate that ones found on a CD player (for example)?

 

Yes, because each layer of the menu requires you to press ENTER. It would not be possible to use the IMPORT CD feature or change Network settings without the ENTER button. Those are just two examples...

 

I never even touch the front panel. CDs ripped to FLAC with dbpoweramp and transferred to the unit through the network.
It sounds great IMO. Someone said here it is only good for background music. I guess he has some very special gear.
I will look into your tutorial. Thanks.

 

Read it, looks like very simple thing. Thanks! I wonder why Sony didn't install a bigger drive from the start. A few bucks difference in price wouldn't be painful for them.
But an external drive still can be 1gb only?

 

Didn't say it was only good for back-ground music. I use it for back-ground music, as it's sonic ability is slightly down from a good CD player or turntable. It's still a very cool piece of gear and one that I'd consider a, best-bang-for-the-buck.

 

It seems to me it holds its own pretty well against my Marantz, which is a decent player. But I never do any careful comparisons... Just listen one or another.

 

Good point.

 

Interesting firmware upgrade for the HAP-Z1ES : it can stream now from USB to another DAC.
It supports usb hab, and an external hard drive and DAC can be connected simultaneously.
I tested today streaming to my Marantz SACD player and it works well.
Apparently it also supports now streaming into the unit through a LAN (or maybe WAN as well) from PC, by I don don't do it and couldn't test.

 

Maybe Sony will release a Top of the line Digital player

 

Official list:

This firmware upgrade (version 18033R) provides the following improvements over version 17384R:

Adds support for the Media Server function
Adds support for the USB digital output function (USB hub support for connecting each of one HDD drive, one CD drive, and one USB DAC)
Adds support for Seek operations
Adds support for the Fade In/Out function
Adds the Go to genre/artist/album/folder function to the Options menu
Adds the following operations:
Queuing the track next to the one currently playing, and queuing the track last
Deleting the track from the play queue
Creating a playlist with the play queue
Deleting the playlist
Deleting the track from the playlist
Deleting the information of a disconnected external hard disk drive

 

The unit comes with it's own remote control but I use my phone and tablet for control. Rarely touch the front panel buttons.

 

Exactly. I touch it only to accept firmware updates. The tablet app is fantastic to control, and all files are trasfered from PC.

 

To me, the HAP-Z1ES is simply a total joy. I think it sounds extremely good, and it is a pleasure to use and build really well. I dont think that the buttons will ever break. It hold perfectly up against any other source I have.

HIFIGUY528, did you get snappier response from the player after the SSD upgrade? I am using 800 gb+ on the standard drive, and it has become significantly slower in operation, witch would be understandable, as most hhd drives become so much slower after reaching 70 procent capacity.

 

I purchased a 1Tb Samsung 850EVO SSD to replace the stock laptop Sony HD inside the HAP-Z1ES. In lieu of just inserting a new drive and having the unit format the drive to EXT3/4 format, I thought of doing a hard drive clone (bit for bit copy). This should yield a drive that just pops in to replace the old drive, then just works....Has anyone actually done this? It takes forever to replace the contents via network to the new drive, so in the interest of saving days of time, this sounds like a good idea. Any linux experts care to chime in? Also, I read in a forum someplace that if an external HD is connected, it's formatted to a slightly different linux format than the internal HD (Ext3 vsExt4). Can anyone confirm this?