[Rob49]

  Just got a UDA1 (But seems I'm not allowed to attach a picture).
 
First thoughts:
Lovely sound and nice to have native DSD support at last
Plenty loud enough for desktop use through my PMC DB1s despite being only 20W
Very low noise floor and quick to switch audio sampling frequencies
DSD 128 and 32/192 PCM support
Requires driver to function in Win7
ASIO works well in 32 or 64 bit but at the moment DSD only seems to work with Sony's own player. I have e-mailed the Foobar SACD plugin dev to see if support can be added.
Whathifi likely skewed the result by using a Mac as I suspect async support requires a proper driver.

Thanks for your thoughts. Have you tried any FLAC 44.1 files ? Or connected a PMP ?

 

[Krobar]

 
Thanks for your thoughts. Have you tried any FLAC 44.1 files ? Or connected a PMP ?

 
All Flac files work fine including 16/44, 24/44, 24/96 and 24/192. 32/192 wav plays back and is detected fine by the Dac too. JRivers seems to be the best software match as it supports native DSD
 
Haven't done a lot of CD res listening yet but Highway to Hell sounds pretty damn good

 

[Rob49]

   
All Flac files work fine including 16/44, 24/44, 24/96 and 24/192. 32/192 wav plays back and is detected fine by the Dac too. JRivers seems to be the best software match as it supports native DSD
 
Haven't done a lot of CD res listening yet but Highway to Hell sounds pretty damn good

Thank you for further feedback. I can't decide whether to buy one. I play FLAC files through my Oppo 93, and I'm not sure if it would be a waste of money. ( as such ) ?
Obviously, it's aimed mainly at laptop / pc use, but I also like the option of adding speakers.

 

[Krobar]

  Thank you for further feedback. I can't decide whether to buy one. I play FLAC files through my Oppo 93, and I'm not sure if it would be a waste of money. ( as such ) ?
Obviously, it's aimed mainly at laptop / pc use, but I also like the option of adding speakers.

My own thoughts are that the UDA1 is perfect for desktop PC use which is what I use it for. For main room use I would look at the HAP-S1 or even the HAP-Z1ES; they can play files without a PC (My results are for the UDA1 playing back from a PC using JRivers).

 

[Rob49]

 
My own thoughts are that the UDA1 is perfect for desktop PC use which is what I use it for. For main room use I would look at the HAP-S1 or even the HAP-Z1ES; they can play files without a PC (My results are for the UDA1 playing back from a PC using JRivers).

The problem is, they are ALL appealing for different reasons. If I had £4.000 + my decision would be easy ! ( or easier )
 
I like the easy portability that the UDA-1 would bring, but also like the capability of storing all my music files in one place, with the HAP-S1. Decisions, decisions.....!

 

[sluker]

So far I am glad I got the HAP-S1.
I can play files from my desktop computer via optical or off of the hard drive (which is expandable if I need more room). You get double the watts (40 compared to 20 on the UDA1) from the speaker taps and with tone controls even the HE-6's are happy. Most of all the sound quality is great. So far I am noticing more depth to the sound-stage than the DAC in my Harmon CD/DAC as well as a darker background. It is a tad brighter than I am used to but the tone control's can take care of that.
It's taking forever to load the music though, so far I am bout 60% through 160gb and I have been at it since yesterday.

 

[Gradius]

I wonder if it can supports 3TB or even 4TB hard drive.
 
So far I found no1 (yet) to swap the 500GB (or 1TB) to a bigger one and perform the test.

 

[Krobar]

  I wonder if it can supports 3TB or even 4TB hard drive.
 
So far I found no1 (yet) to swap the 500GB (or 1TB) to a bigger one and perform the test.

 
Some devices use fixed geometry in which case it wont. If it detects a larger drive but expects something odd with the prep you could fix this with a Linux comp and dd + resize2fs (Whatihifi review mentioned the drive is Ext4 formatted).

 

[sluker]

why would you swap it out?
you can connect an external drive through USB, as long as you format it with the device it will read it as available space. I am not sure about 3 or 4 but I will be getting a 2gb portable drive for it so that I can start hoarding more Hi-rez music. At this point my lossles library is only about 180gb so i have a ways to go.

 

[Gradius]

   
Some devices use fixed geometry in which case it wont. If it detects a larger drive but expects something odd with the prep you could fix this with a Linux comp and dd + resize2fs (Whatihifi review mentioned the drive is Ext4 formatted).

 
I see.  So it runs a Linux modded version.
 
 

  why would you swap it out?
you can connect an external drive through USB, as long as you format it with the device it will read it as available space. I am not sure about 3 or 4 but I will be getting a 2gb portable drive for it so that I can start hoarding more Hi-rez music. At this point my lossles library is only about 180gb so i have a ways to go.

 
You mean 2TB, not 2gb.   The reason is not to have something else besides the unit, like an external HDD.   My collection is around 1TB as far I remember, so 500GB is already too little.

 

[Krobar]

Whilst on the subject it looks like these units use 2.5" internal drives (HAP-Z1ES review in Hifi News) so 2TB is max that will fit for now.

 

[oneway23]

Does Sony offer a dac/hdd combo without the integrated amp for those with a pre-existing amp or powered speakers?
I'm pretty sure that's the $2,000 model, but, why the heck is the model WITHOUT the amp $1,000 more than the one with?
Seems like a terrible value to me.

 

[Krobar]

The $2000 model looks to have a higher end dac setup (Fully balanced; or at least topology looks like 1 dac per channel and dual power supplies in Hifi News pics). Other balanced dacs costs around $1000+ and they are not media players, the only equivalent I know is the Lumin device and that costs double.

 

[Steven Stone1]

My full review of the HAP-Z1ES is here - http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/sony-hap-z1es-hdd-audio-player/

 

[Krobar]

Interesting review and very complimentary. I have come across one bug with my UDA1 so far when using the USB input. If you set 24/48 default sample rate for Windows (Sensible for most non audio track use eg. Game and Youtube especially when you use ASIO for audio playback) then if you start a track in ASIO and then say a Youtube vid or radio website, as soon as you close the ASIO app the sound from the website will appear but with bad distortion (As if the Amp has not relocked). Reloading the website fixes it but it looks like the USB Sony implementation has an issue relocking when ASIO is quit.
 
 
Quote:

  My full review of the HAP-Z1ES is here - http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/sony-hap-z1es-hdd-audio-player/