Mitch, The ModWright mod requires use of an external PS 9.0 or PS 9.9 power supply. I am using the PS 9.0, which Dan prefers with the HAPZ1. I also have a PS 9.9 here, which I will use with my ModWright 5400.
Sony HAPZ1 For prospective buyers and owners
I have been encouraged to share my experiences with the new Sony HAPZ1ES. I hope a few who may be considering purchase of this unit will find this useful. I expect those not interested in purchasing this unit will want to tune this thread out. There is going to be some detail here. I will provide a summary statement with significant conclusions at the beginning of each days record for those not interested in the details.
It would probably be good to start with a few words to provide a frame of reference. I’m not a computer geek. I’m a reasonably bright guy, but a computer to me is just a tool. It’s a hammer that enables driving a nail, that’s it. I learn what I need to know to do what I want to do and that is all.
My interest in the new Sony is that I expected it would facilitate a long standing goal of assembling a computer based system. Further, it accommodates Hi Rez files, and does on the fly conversion of PCM to DSD. It also offers streaming audio, allowing convenient playback of internet radio. It has a 1 TB hard drive, so there is a lot of room for my substantial music collection.
For me, the deciding factor in purchase of this piece was Dan Wright’s enthusiasm for the stock unit and rapid development of a ModWright upgrade package which he says takes the HAPZ1 to reference levels.
Day 1- Initial set up easy, sound quality indeterminate.
I unpacked the unit and gave it about 4 hours to return to room temperature before turning it on. First order of business was to establish the wireless connection with my home network. This was straightforward and took less than 30 minutes to complete. The unit comes with a small amount of software on the hard drive, so this allowed me to begin playing without having to begin download of my existing music library to the internal hard drive. I played through the free music twice, just to give the unit a little burn in time. The free music selection was not my cup of tea, so I could not draw any real conclusions about sound quality.
Day 2- Some frustration with getting set up for download. Interactions with Sony Tech support a mixed bag. Concerned about Sony’s ability to help Mac users. Sound quality with a casual listen promising with under 10 hours burn in.
I spent about a half an hour transferring music from CD to my iMac. Once this was complete, I went to the Sony website and downloaded the free HAP music transfer software to my iMac. Again this was completely straightforward. Upon opening the program, I ran into the first snag. The box that popped up asked me to select the device to which I wanted to connect. There were no devices to select. I began a dialogue with Sony using the chat room accessible from their website. The person who attempted to help me was completely clueless. She referred me to documents which did not address my problem, referred me to documents addressing connection problems with windows machines, and finally, after wasting about 20 minutes of my time admitted she couldn’t help me. She gave me the Sony tech support number.
I called the number (1-800-222-7669) and went through about 3 people before I got to the correct department. This wasn’t as frustrating as it sounds- It just took a few seconds to get to the Sony home audio ES support line. There was about a 10 minute wait until someone took my call. The guy I talked to was pretty sharp. However, his ability to help was hampered by the fact that “ we don’t have a Mac here.” Well, I would suggest that Sony get one!
While we were talking, he indicated that sometimes it takes a few minutes for the music transfer software to find the device. We worked on the problem for a few minutes, and while he was looking something up, I figured out what was wrong. My iMac bluetooth was looking for the wrong network. Once I selected the correct network, the music transfer software found the HAPZ1 immediately. I selected the device, and he advised checking the content settings. A new box shows file extensions that you can select or deselect to be transferred. While flac, wav, mp3, and 12 others appeared as options, ALAC (Apple lossless) did not appear. However, the support guy did a quick Google and found that m4a is the correct file type for ALAC, and that is one of the types listed so I was OK there. I also added /users/my user name/Music/iTunes as a folder to be watched, which probably wasn’t necessary.
Next, I went to the transfer settings. I turned the auto transfer feature off, and selected internal HDD as the destination since I don’t have an external hard drive yet. I activated the manual transfer, which I was doing wirelessly to see how long it would take to transfer the 200 files (tracks). I walked away for a few minutes and when I came back, I found that the transfer had stopped incomplete. I started the manual transfer again and walked away again. When I returned, the same thing had occurred. This may be due to an auto standby feature which apparently shuts the HAPZ1 down after a few minutes with no activity. I turned this off, but I had enough music transferred to give a more serious listen to the unit. I listened to part 1 of the Dunedin Consort recording of the Bach Johannes Passion. This is a wonderful performance, with recording quality that I have found to be somewhat spotty. It is wonderful in the aria and recicitives, but rough in the Chorals. Played back through the HAPZ1, this was pretty close to what I remembered playing through my ModWright Sony 5400. Next I played the Purcell Quartet recordings of Bach’s Mass in G minor BWV235. This is a standard redbook CD, so I was interested to see what the conversion to DSD 2 would sound like. In a word, playback of this music was just absolutely lovely! I suspect this unit, stock, may give my ModWright Sony 5400 a run for its money, but a serious A/B is still several days down the road.
It would probably be good to start with a few words to provide a frame of reference. I’m not a computer geek. I’m a reasonably bright guy, but a computer to me is just a tool. It’s a hammer that enables driving a nail, that’s it. I learn what I need to know to do what I want to do and that is all.
My interest in the new Sony is that I expected it would facilitate a long standing goal of assembling a computer based system. Further, it accommodates Hi Rez files, and does on the fly conversion of PCM to DSD. It also offers streaming audio, allowing convenient playback of internet radio. It has a 1 TB hard drive, so there is a lot of room for my substantial music collection.
For me, the deciding factor in purchase of this piece was Dan Wright’s enthusiasm for the stock unit and rapid development of a ModWright upgrade package which he says takes the HAPZ1 to reference levels.
Day 1- Initial set up easy, sound quality indeterminate.
I unpacked the unit and gave it about 4 hours to return to room temperature before turning it on. First order of business was to establish the wireless connection with my home network. This was straightforward and took less than 30 minutes to complete. The unit comes with a small amount of software on the hard drive, so this allowed me to begin playing without having to begin download of my existing music library to the internal hard drive. I played through the free music twice, just to give the unit a little burn in time. The free music selection was not my cup of tea, so I could not draw any real conclusions about sound quality.
Day 2- Some frustration with getting set up for download. Interactions with Sony Tech support a mixed bag. Concerned about Sony’s ability to help Mac users. Sound quality with a casual listen promising with under 10 hours burn in.
I spent about a half an hour transferring music from CD to my iMac. Once this was complete, I went to the Sony website and downloaded the free HAP music transfer software to my iMac. Again this was completely straightforward. Upon opening the program, I ran into the first snag. The box that popped up asked me to select the device to which I wanted to connect. There were no devices to select. I began a dialogue with Sony using the chat room accessible from their website. The person who attempted to help me was completely clueless. She referred me to documents which did not address my problem, referred me to documents addressing connection problems with windows machines, and finally, after wasting about 20 minutes of my time admitted she couldn’t help me. She gave me the Sony tech support number.
I called the number (1-800-222-7669) and went through about 3 people before I got to the correct department. This wasn’t as frustrating as it sounds- It just took a few seconds to get to the Sony home audio ES support line. There was about a 10 minute wait until someone took my call. The guy I talked to was pretty sharp. However, his ability to help was hampered by the fact that “ we don’t have a Mac here.” Well, I would suggest that Sony get one!
While we were talking, he indicated that sometimes it takes a few minutes for the music transfer software to find the device. We worked on the problem for a few minutes, and while he was looking something up, I figured out what was wrong. My iMac bluetooth was looking for the wrong network. Once I selected the correct network, the music transfer software found the HAPZ1 immediately. I selected the device, and he advised checking the content settings. A new box shows file extensions that you can select or deselect to be transferred. While flac, wav, mp3, and 12 others appeared as options, ALAC (Apple lossless) did not appear. However, the support guy did a quick Google and found that m4a is the correct file type for ALAC, and that is one of the types listed so I was OK there. I also added /users/my user name/Music/iTunes as a folder to be watched, which probably wasn’t necessary.
Next, I went to the transfer settings. I turned the auto transfer feature off, and selected internal HDD as the destination since I don’t have an external hard drive yet. I activated the manual transfer, which I was doing wirelessly to see how long it would take to transfer the 200 files (tracks). I walked away for a few minutes and when I came back, I found that the transfer had stopped incomplete. I started the manual transfer again and walked away again. When I returned, the same thing had occurred. This may be due to an auto standby feature which apparently shuts the HAPZ1 down after a few minutes with no activity. I turned this off, but I had enough music transferred to give a more serious listen to the unit. I listened to part 1 of the Dunedin Consort recording of the Bach Johannes Passion. This is a wonderful performance, with recording quality that I have found to be somewhat spotty. It is wonderful in the aria and recicitives, but rough in the Chorals. Played back through the HAPZ1, this was pretty close to what I remembered playing through my ModWright Sony 5400. Next I played the Purcell Quartet recordings of Bach’s Mass in G minor BWV235. This is a standard redbook CD, so I was interested to see what the conversion to DSD 2 would sound like. In a word, playback of this music was just absolutely lovely! I suspect this unit, stock, may give my ModWright Sony 5400 a run for its money, but a serious A/B is still several days down the road.
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Burn in continues. I have about 45 hours in so far. No huge changes since the post at 20 hours. The matched pair of 6CG7 (NOS RCA clear tops) tubes came Friday. I find these tubes to be a bit more to my liking than the new production EH 6922s. Strings are sweetened and brass instruments certainly have improved due to more sophisticated upper harmonics. If there is any decrease in resolution, its not yet apparent to me. I still am not quite getting the to die for upper harmonics on woodwinds I get with my ModWright 5400, but there is still time for some improvement there with more burn in. I guess I've got the transfers protocol down now. No problems whatsoever with the approach I described previously. |
I have about 85 hours of music play time in so far. Last night I noticed a very nice ripening of the upper harmonics has occurred. Cellos and brass were especially lovely last night. Also, I was really struck by the depth of image last night. I had noted that as something to monitor as burn in continued, and last night while listening to Hillary Hahn's Beethoven concerto, I was again impressed by just how good the ModWright HAPZ1 is in this regard. I did notice just a bit of grain intermittently last night. AIFF transfers continue. Occasionally, there is a minor issue, but this is something I know longer fret over. I have better luck if I do rather small transfers, say 5-6 CDs at a time. |
I have about 120 hours of burn in now on the ModWright modification. At this point, the upper harmonics have bloomed, ripened, whatever you prefer, to a substantial extent. I spent some significant time last weekend listening to Stravinsky. Dumbarton Oaks, Petrushka, the Rite of Spring, also Messiaen quartet for the End of Time, and Golijov Dreams and prayers of Isaac the Blind. Bassoon, contrabassoon, every possible permutation of clarinet, all sound just wonderful. Strings are also doing very nicely. Cello is pretty much to die for. Oboe and horn are just not quite there yet. I am still far short of the 400 hours necessary for the transformers to fully burn in. I have about 400 cds loaded at this point. I've got most of my favorite recordings of my favorite works downloaded, and a few 2nd and third choices on favorite works as well. It is going to be a much easier deal now to find recordings using the tablet. No more, where are my glasses, where is the flashlight, and where did that Abbado Mahler 1 get to? Not to mention the Floristan Shostakovich trio. Yesterday, I had a hankering for Bach's Wahrlich, wahrlich ich sage euch. It was so nice just scrolling down on the tracks listing to get the desired cantata, rather than fumbling through 54 cds trying to figure out which one had Wahrlich. Also this week, I listened to some of the DSD freebies that came with the player. Looking at my first post, I was struck by my initial comment on these recordings--- " sound quality indeterminate." Much different this time. The Yo Yo Ma track from Appalachian journey was stunning. I will be willing to sample some dsd downloads, once something I actually want is commercially available. I don't know, maybe the Starker Bach sonatas. Stay tuned |
Hi Brownsfan. I was halfway responding to you, hit one key and everything disappeared. Hope this does not post twice. I have not noticed any difference in the sound between the two drives, but do not have the same song on both drives to compare. I'm using the WD supplied 7 inch or so usb cable. One bonus of the Passport is no external power source to worry about. I have not done any merging of any sort, sorry not to be able to help you there. I have been busy moving 4 yards of dirt and another 4 yds of mulch in between thunderstorms, so not much listening time. I'm still quite enjoying the HAP, and my wife especially likes the 'SensMe' feature. Glad your unit continues to improve to your liking. Please keep up with the updates, they are very helpful. Now I'm looking for a pair of Harbeth P3ESR speakers for upstairs with the HAP as the source. Enjoy |
Brownsfan, congrats on your Modwright purchase, retirement, and the pending move. I grew up in Charlottesville, VA and also very much enjoyed hiking through the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. I also very much celebrate your revelation about your parents and making the most of now. Alzheimer's a very, very evil disease. Thank you for this thorough and detailed review. I think Sony has created something that will potentially free many audiophiles from the silly fiddle factor of computer audio. I have considered one, but the only downside is the absence of a digital output. If that was there, I would buy it in a heartbeat. At present, I am looking at the Auralic Aries as a non-computer transport. |
"Deleting unwanted files from the hard drive has (as of yesterday) become easy. One highlights the file, holds the enter button down for a couple seconds, and a screen comes up allowing you to delete the file. Sony documentation does not tell you this, I got this from yesterdays call to Sony tech support. Lots of smiles today. This thing is a steal at 2K." Thank you for this insight. I am going thru the learning curve now and was wondering how to delete files. I use Windows 8 so some of your experiences are different, but in large part your comments are quite useful. Thank you. BTW, This thing is a steal at $2K. |
Joecasey, I am waiting for the modded HAPZ1to fully burn in before doing a serious A/B with the MW5400. As it stands now, with probably 150 hours on it, the modded HAPZ1 is clearly superior in most respects to the modded 5400. I will do a very serious A/B in about 3-4 weeks, since there doesn't seem to be much point in doing this when the HAPZ1 is still changing due to burn in. |
Agear, thanks. The HAPZ1 is not the perfect machine in term s of functionality. It is what it is, and if that works for you, it is a great piece. I would have loved to have been able to use it with a transport, but having made the decision to go with the HAPZ1, I really think this will be a minor issue for me, especially now that I have about 500 of my most frequently listened to CDs uploaded. |
I for one will never buy Sony again. Years back I bought an xm radio that developed a terrible noisy cooling fan. It was very audible even when I buried it in sound proofing. I sent it back for repair, under warranty. Sony said there was nothing wrong with it. They "bench tested" it by comparing it to a couple other units on the bench. I guess the noisy fan is normal. As far as I'm concerned Sony has no service department. |
ERM, Thanks for the info. I've planned to get all my favorites on the internal hard drive, reserving an external drive for infrequents. Some say usb transfers are generally inferior to other approaches, but it may be that is not relevant to the HAPZ1. I hear you on the domestic chores. I've spent the last 2 days cleaning carpets, including the listening room. I should start getting the rig back together tomorrow afternoon. I will be very glad when I get all the work done on the house and it goes on the market. I hardly feel retired. Putting in way too many 14 hour days painting, cleaning, landscaping, boxing stuff up, hauling boxes to storage, it just seems like it never will end. But, I have to say, the house is starting to look pretty good. |
Mitch4t, I haven't figured this out yet. I have my iMac automatically backed up by my apple time machine. The time machine sees the HAPZ1 on the network, but I haven't figured out how to get it to back up the HAPZ1 yet. Once I get all this work done on the house, I will have more time to figure out the nuances like back up. As I said earlier, computers are a tool for me. I learn exactly as much as I need to learn to do what I want to do, and no more. |
Mitch4t, I don't think making a backup of the HAP's internal drive is needed based upon its intended application. Sony's transfer software automatically copies music files over your network from the directories you select to the HAP. So your "backup" of the music files is already on your PC or NAS drives. As you add new music files to your PC or NAS they are then automatically copied to the HAP. If you desire additional backups of your music files you can easily create them on your PC to an external drive. |
Bill K, if the transfer program worked properly, what you say is correct. Unfortunately, what I have found repeatedly, is that files left in the iTunes folder on my iMac, are sometimes redownloaded in corrupted form to the HAPZ1. The only way I have found to prevent this is to clear the "transferred files" list in the HAPZ1 transfer program and delete the albums from iTunes. Thus, there is no backup. I considered moving the files out of iTunes into a separate folder that is not designated for transfer to the HAPZ1, but it appears this looses the album integrity, so that one just has individual tracks, not albums. Sony recently updated the HAPZ1 transfer program without releasing any details on what they changed. I hope they fixed this, and I do intend to try leaving the files in iTunes to see if they fixed the glitch. |
I just backed up the HAP external drive via the network. The NAS files are no longer current as the HAP makes changes and I have used the app to work with the metadata. It takes a while but not as bad as initially installing the music on the HAP. I have 1.2 TB of AIFF and 500 GB of DSF. Really happy with this player! |
140 hours of burn in. Last night, I listened to Das Reingold and the new Venzago Bruckner 8. French horns were particularly lovely in both of these recordings, and I would say this is the first time I began to hear horns as I would like them to be with the HAPZ1. Also, this week I listened to the early 60's Herbert von Karajan/Berlin recordings of LvB symphonies 3, 4, 5, and 7. Surprisingly, the recording quality of 5 and 7 was on a par with 3 and 4. I know these performances and recordings well. I cut my teeth on the vinyl versions back in the early 70's, and snatched up a set of the remastered SACDs earlier this year. Through the Modwright 5400, all but the 3rd and 4th are pretty rough and grainy. Through the HAPZ1, all those I have heard so far are, with the exception of dynamic range, almost on a par with recent recordings in my library. I have about 620 albums loaded so far. I stay busy with this, dedicating about 30 minutes twice a day to the process. I have almost no Haydn or Mozart loaded yet. I am guessing another month and I will be in pretty good shape with having my library on the hard drive. Still no dsd downloads. Might be time to dip my toe into those waters soon. |
Another week, I'm now up to about 750 albums on the hard drive. There have been a couple more very pleasant surprises this week. As I indicated in the last update, time to begin to work through Haydn and Mozart. Working through the Haydn string quartets, I was pretty much amazed by the transfers of the old Op. 76, 77, and 103 Takacs Quartet recordings on Decca. In particular, the improvement of the Op. 76 playback vs CD player was stunning. These are old recordings that I have had for a long time. Through my ModWright Sony 5400, the stock 5400, the Cambridge 840, and my old Denon 1640, these quartets were just about unlistenable. They sounded as if they had been recorded in an enormous cave, using a single microphone set back 100 meters from the players. Simply awful. Through the Modwright HAPZ1, these wonderful performances sounded lovely. Perhaps just a wee bit more hall ambience than I might like, but for the first time, these wonderful performances will get some serious playing time in my house. I can't explain what sounds like a complete change in venue and microphone set up. But the difference is profound. The Op 64 quartets, this time by Quartor Mosaiques, in like fashion I found to be problematic in sound quality with cd playback. This time, there was something in the playback inducing listener fatigue, so that I just didn't enjoy these recordings. Much better through the HAPZ1. Not sure the performances are my cup of tea, but at least now I will give them enough time to draw a yea or nay conclusion. Since I am spending so much time trying to get ready to move, I'm not getting the burn in hours or serious listening time I'd like to get. It is a slow process under these conditions. Can't be helped. |
Knghifi, good to hear you find my ramblings useful. I don't know enough about ee to second guess Dan's designs. I only know what my ears tell me. The MW HAPZ1 is a very good digital source. Sure wish we had more to choose from on DSD downloads. I see that the MW DAC has been released. I have no doubt that it is everything Dan says it is. The price, plus the price of a transport or computer system, would put that approach at a substantial premium to the HAPZ1. |
Thanks Mitch, will do. The cd drive on my iMac stopped working yesterday, so I won't be doing any new transfers until I get it fixed. I guess I can struggle along with the 793 albums transferred so far until I can get if fixed. I've listened to the Ligeti "Ten pieces for Wind Quintet" 3 times over the last 3 days. We are not quite there yet. Still need more burn in. Once I get another couple hundred hours in, I will bring in a good pair of NOS 6922s to compare with the 6GC7s. I'm open to suggestions. |
I will bring in a good pair of NOS 6922s to compare with the 6GC7s. I'm open to suggestions.In my current system, 60's Siemens e88cc is my favorite and then Telefunken e88cc. Siemens is probably tough to find but checkout Upscale Audio for NOS Tele. Vinnie from RedWine Audio is rolling them in his HAPZ1 mod. These tubes are very linear and neutral. |
Mitch, Macs using iTunes don't rip to flac, although they can if one uses other software. Downloads in flac are no problem. I have a few albums transferred in wav, but the vast majority are in aiff, which is similar to wav in that it is not compressed. If you go back and look at the earlier posts, you will be reminded that I found with a sampling of albums, wav sounded subtly better than ALAC. Based on this finding, coupled with a few trials in which I could not distinguish between aiff and wav, I decided to commit to aiff, which usually transfers without corruption as opposed to wav, which was a nightmare of corruption. I did work out a laborious protocol for using wav and maintaining it in uncorrupted form once it is transferred, but since I can't discern between wav and aiff, I'm not motivated to use it at this point. With almost 800 albums transferred, I still have slightly more than one half of the internal hard drive space free. Clearly, I could transfer the remainder of my library without using an external drive. An additional comment that I would make is that with most albums, I could not discern a difference between wav, ALAC, and aiff. However, since HD space is not limiting, I just went with transferring uncompressed files rather than sorting out which ones would benefit. Once the bulk of the library is transferred, I want to identify my first and second choices for classical works, then either transfer the 3rd, 4th, and sometimes 5th choices of a particular work to an external drive as well as some works that very rarely get a listen (Sorry Elliot Carter, but you have had your chance-time to show you the way to the external drive.) That way, I should always have room for additional acquisitions to the library on the internal drive. Another thing I am noticing is that using the album view for selecting music is becoming somewhat cumbersome. Between, Bach, Bartok, Barber, Beethoven, Bernstein, Brahms, and Britten, it takes a while just to swipe through the B's, and I have nowhere near all of my Bach and Beethoven loaded yet. However, this is nowhere near the problem of trying to find or even remember that I have certain albums in hard media (still can't find that Abaddo Mahler 1). I am going to go through the titles and be more specific on genre, which will help me get to a given work more quickly. For instance, there is no reason why I can't define genre more narrowly, for instance, using Lieder, rather than classical, as the genre for my beloved Schubert Lieder, which will allow me to quickly access the music without swiping all the way to the S's in the album view. I am avoiding use of the favorites flag. Too tempting to have my library effectively reduced to 100 titles! Also, I am finding that some recordings I avoided because of bad sound demand a reassessment. But these are subtleties that can wait for an opportune time. |
Mitch, my updates on burn in were "complicated" by purchase of new amplifiers. This rendered any continuation of the burn in progress impossible, since there was a quantum jump in performance of the system with the new amps. The amps are new so they are also burning in. I wanted to trade in my old equipment on the new amps, so I had to do this before moving out of the Coincident dealers sales territory. I do wish I could have gotten another 100 hours on the HAPZ1 to complete the comparison before buying the new amps, but because of the impending move I needed to act. What I will be able to do, as soon as time permits, is do another careful A/b of the HAPZ1 vs the Modwright Sony 5400 player. Since that was the time zero reference point, this will provide a very good end point analysis of the fully burned in Modwright HAPZ1. I am in the midst of purchase of the new house and won't close until late October. Our house is not yet on the market, and essentially all of my time is consumed with keeping things moving with the 2 houses. I will certainly be glad when this move is over. It is never painless to move, but this is more than I anticipated. I can say this on the HAPZ1. I hardly ever listen to the MW 5400 anymore. It is a very good source. |
While I like the unit overall, I am concerned with Sony and Vtuner. Vtuner happens to be one of the main reasons I bought the unit as I get tired of my collection and love the variety of music I can explore. Since Sept. 06, all you get on the unit is "cannot connect". I have called Sony numerous times about the problem and was first told it was a Vtuner problem. When I informed him it works fine on my Marantz he admitted that their server was having issues with Vtuners server and should be up an running any minute. That was September 6th and as I write this it is end of day September 15th Every time I call to get an update I get the run around. Shame as it could be a really good unit if only Sony would get their act together on this vital function. I realize for some of you the Vtuner may not matter but it does to me |
Sounds like a pretty par for the course kind of experience for computer audio. There is a learning curve up front no matter which device or technology still these days it seems. Good things come to those with some determination though. Once you get it, there are ample rewards to reap. I've seen these Sonys and read about them and think they can be a nice option for many. Myself, I do this stuff for a living, so its hard for me to gauge how hard it is for others, but I know it is not always easy. But when there is a will there is usually a way. |
" I wouldn't know how to build a business plan around an assumption that 90% of my customers are idiots. How is that for a company brand." I doubt the business plan is quite that extreme, but Apple is the perfect model for how to sell technology to those that are perhaps more challenged to understand it than some others. 1) Strive to stay in front of the pack yet keep things as simple and aesthetically pleasing as possible, which typically means fewer options for the customer. 2) Provide ample and effective customer tech support as needed 3) charge top dollar to help pay for all this and make a hefty profit to boot. |
Sad thing is this is a global issue and users have started Facebook pages over this problem with no resolution in sight. Clear that Sony is not only not being truthful, but having many customers resetting their devices, questioning their internet providers, (I stupidly even upgraded my router) and other craziness. Unfortunately, as much as I like my unit when it works, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth and will be returning it. As an FYI, I also feel this is an injustice to many of the retail establishments who are apparently unaware of the issue as well and likely to incur losses with return shipping labels etc. as people demand refunds |
Mapman This has nothing to do with user error. I am extremely competent and should point out unit was working in the am on 5th fine and when I came home that night got nothing but a cannot connect message. Internet working fine on 1 MacBook Pro, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, 2 Apple TV's a Marantz , a Sonos and a partridge in a pear tree. Even bought a new router thinking maybe something weird going on with same result. Did you notice Brownsfan had the same issue???? If you go Google this you will see it is a world wide issue with page after page of frustrated users in UK as well. Additionally, as I stated, Sony has acknowledged it is not working. Plain and simple |
Sony HAPZ1 owners, help this guy out... http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1410889006&read&3&zzlJcaudio&& |
I don't get why everybody keeps saying to help me out. Clear that nobody is reading my whole thread. As I stated, Sony HAS acknowledged there is a problem and they have their engineers on it. Has nothing to do with my end. Read the forum complaints from the UK as well that have same issues that started on same day. http://community.sony.co.uk/t5/hi-fi-systems/cmt-g2bnip-music-services-vtuner-not-working-since-last-3-days/td-p/1256300 |
Sony needs to wake up and smell the coffee. They have, in my opinion, a superb product with huge sales potential. They are failing miserably when it comes to facilitating commercial availability of their catalogue in DSD, now this issue with Vtuner. What is not clear to me is if this has been a case of a corporate decision to deny culpability for the problem, or clueless employees at the help desk making up stuff as they go. This is an important feature worked perfectly for a long time. What is the deal, Sony? |
I suspect part of the problem is Sony's size and I suspect having to deal with an external service provider is a relatively new thing for them. Hopefully just some bumps along the road that will get squared away soon. If I were Sony, I would acknowledge the problem and provide a clear roadmap for getting it fixed. |
Your cable company can arbitrally decide to drop your favorite channel. Your software company can stop supporting the OS you use. Your smart phone doesn't have to support an app you like. Your favorite FM station can change formats. If you buy a internet enabled device you are at the mercy of the manufacturer to maintain their internet portal. I imagine Sony reserves the right to change service as they see fit, but at a minimum they should be transparent about their decision. |