Sony HAP-Z1ES/TA-A1ES High-Resolution Digital Music Player (Part 2)

Sony HAP-Z1ES/TA-A1ES High-Resolution Digital Music Player (Part 2)

Ultra-purist Amp

Sony’s all-new amplifier to partner its ES HDD player is its first two-channel analogue amp since the TA-FA777ES. It’s not as luxurious as the copper-chassis’d ’777. Nonetheless it’s a tasty $3 345 ’s-worth with a fairly meaty power supply on-board. I’d have wagered a 21st century Sony amp to be a Class D or even a digital design… but, no, it uses a single ended push-pull circuit employing just two transistors per channel.

Inside, music files are stored on a 1TB drive and upsampled to 5.6MHz DSD prior to filtering through a pair of Burr-Brown PCM1795 DACs

Dual-mono in layout, the TA-A1ES really is ultra-purist, with no emitter resistors, coils or capacitors in the signal line. A nice design touch is the inclusion of a separate dedicated headphone amplifier, which has switchable output impedance/gain optimisation.These smart-looking components make a perfect pair. But what does the HAP-Z1ES sound like as a digital audio source? And how good is the TA-A1ES amp?

Superb Transparency

With my regular computer source pushing data into Auralic’s Vega DAC via USB I was bowled over by the open and crystal-clear sound of the ES amplifier. It sounded relaxed and confident, with an inviting midband and natural, sparkling high frequencies that were free of grain and edginess. Its bass was powerful, extended and extremely well controlled. In fact with top-notch recordings it sounded better than my 100W Mark Levinson, less creamily coloured and with better detail resolution at both frequency extremes. Playing Norwegian pianist Jan Gunnar Hoff’s acoustic jazz project, his Hoff Ensemble’s Quiet Winter Night album recorded by 2L in a church in Oslo [2L-087, 24-bit/96kHz download], demonstrated fabulous detail, providing ample evidence of the amplifier’s superb transparency. I next focused on the performance of the HAP-Z1ES. It’s certainly refined and super-clean sounding, with a ‘pure’ and delicate treble quality.

Sony HAP-Z1ES/TA-A1ES

But I thought it a tad soft-focused and laidback, with a subjectively reticent bass delivery that made it appear lean and lacking verve compared with the sound I get using JRiver Media Center to push data into top-notch DACs such as T+A’s DAC 8 (and the DoP-equipped Auralic Vega I used in order to judge the Sony’s DSD128 playback performance). Don’t get the wrong impression here: Sony’s HDD player is no slouch. I’m comparing it with the best available. Putting the two ES components together, using Signal Projects’ gorgeous Hydra cables that (gulp!) cost almost as much as one of the units themselves, the player’s slight leanness and lack of verve was ameliorated to a degree by the amplifier’s open-mouthed clarity and dynamic clout. Together they make for a very persuasive system, delivering a tremendously informative and finely textured sound quality that proved a joy to listen to, and often revelatory. It proved perfectly able to reveal subtle differences in fi le quality, as I discovered when comparing 44.1, 96, 192kHz and DSD64 versions of Rachel Podger playing Bach concertos with the Brecon Baroque, from Channel Classics . Improvements in authority, grip, pitch definition, tonal shading and ambience detail were all apparent with higher sample rates. Moreover, for collectors of SHM-CDs the Sony combo is also adequately transparent to highlight differences in CD mastering and manufacturing – and the quality of your rips!

The HAP-Z1ES offers single-ended (RCA) and balanced (XLR) analogue outs with a wired ethernet input and USB port for an external HDD

PCM or DSD?

So what sonic effect does the ’X1 player have in converting PCM fi les to DSD? Hearing its excellent sound quality when playing a rip of a beautiful-sounding CD such as Patricia Barber’s Companion, which was mastered at 24-bit from an analogue source, there’s no way you would know you were listening to a PCM-to-DSD conversion. With good recordings Sony’s new ES components sound just wonderful. In ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ the instruments and Barber’s voice were depicted exquisitely in the holographic image, the sound of the drum kit tangible and the acoustic setting palpable. You can turn the DSD Remastering on and off – on the- fly – and decide for yourself if you like the slight smoothing and ‘sweetening’ effect that DSD clearly generates. As for 2.8MHz DSD64 files being upsampled to 5.6MHz, I thought the sonic effect so subtle I doubt I’d reliably determine the difference under blind listening. Only when comparing DSD directly with high-speed PCM did I tend to feel short-changed, the sound losing some of its sparkle and with leading edges and dynamics seemingly blunted. (I’m also aware that many listeners prefer what I observe to be a slightly rose-tinted version of events, claiming DSD to sound ‘more analogue’ and organic. Each to their own.) I’m bound to conclude that the amplifier is the sonic star here, but the HDD player is also excellent given its price. Intriguingly, as PM’s Lab Report explains, the ES amplifier’s bias current increases with volume position. This implies that changing the volume might momentarily alter its sonic character. I tried to see if I could hear this, by listening to a few seconds of music, moving the volume and then listening to the same segment a few minutes later. But I couldn’t spot any variation.