Resonessence Mirrus vs Sony HAPZ-1ES


Both of these units would allow me to eliminate a computer in my living room. I just heard both at The Show 2014 in Newport.

The Sony was played in many rooms with top notch gear and speakers. So that was a good endorsement for the Sony. I think the convenience factor of the Sony also played a role in why it was used in many rooms. All the systems sounded very good. I spent close to an hour in the Sony room listening to their top of the line speakers with he HAPZ. I could not get the demo person to turn off the DSD up-sampling. So the up-sampling must have been considered the way to go.

The Resonessence Mirrus DAC was played directly to a new 108 watt class A Resonessence stereo amp that has not been released yet. The DAC has a digital volume control that is supposed to be very good. The speakers that were used were 15 year old B&W, purchased by Resonessence from eBay for $400. I was quite blown away by how good the sound was and the fact that they did not purposely use top notch speakers. I was thinking wow what would this system sound like with some top notch speakers. The SD-Card feature of the Mirrus is maybe a better solution than the fan based eSata hard drive of the Sony. The theoretical limit of the cards the Mirrus supports is 2 tera-bytes. I think today you can buy 256 giga-byte cards.

I cannot directly compare the Sony and Mirrus since I have not heard them in the same system, but if I had to bet money, I would place it on the Mirrus based on my cursor listen. Has anybody compared the 2 DAC's in their systems? If so, I would appreciate any feedback.

If I go with something like the Mirrus I can eliminate by very good pre-amp and go directly to my amps. Has anybody with a Mirrus done this? Did you prefer it direct vs a analog pre-amp?

The Sony is very good sounding unit, 50%+ cheaper, extremely convenient, and I would keep my pre-amp. Which I am happy with (BAT VK-42SE).
yyzsantabarbara

Showing 11 responses by calvinj

I have ran my mirus dac directly to luminance audio kst 150. I have a great sound. This is a great dac. It has plenty of body and extension in the treble. Great Mids as well I'm very happy
@yyzsantabarbara. This dac at its price competes and beats a lot of the best.
@audiolabryinth. The dac does these little sd cards. 128gb. I can put 30 or more albums in dsd or 40 or 50 in wav albums on one small sd card. I don't have to be hooked up to a transport or a computer. I love that part of it.
@audiolabryinth. I will be taking a look into that and will get that to you a little later. It sounds great without the pre in the equation but I will try another one anyway pretty soon to compare.
Keep me updated. I'm moving away from my CD player the parasound cd1. It's a great player on of the best CD players I have ever heard. However I'm going towards the dac route more with my Mirus
@serge_s it has a remote. You can control from the front screen. The screen is kind of small but it does have an hdmi out that I will be using to see it bigger. My dealer uses korg audio gate in his conversion process. Sounds excellent. Big 128 gb sd card 30 albums in dsd no computer hookup needed.
@knghifi Sounds exciting. I haven't even used my usb on the resonessence yet. I'm going to probably try pretty soon. What usb cable you suggest?
@kinghifi. I understand. That's why I got the Resonessence I hate being hooked up to a computer period to be honest with you. I use the sd cards to listen most of the time.
I have a high fidelity ultimate helix power cord on the resonessence mirus dac and it is amazing. The sound is sublime.