[TnTMaN]

I've recently had the pleasure of going through multiple DAC and amp combos. Chord Hugo TT, Auralic Vega, Taurus Mk2, SimAudio 430HAD and Oppo HA-1 powering my LCD-3. The best combo is a HugoTT and the Taurus. It's a match made in heaven. The Oppo HA-1 functions well as an amp but its digital section lets it down a bit. It's great but compared to the other equipment it's not as good. How much better is the other gear? To My ears it's not worth the 3x asking price.

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[Whitigir]

In what ways?

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My bad, I have not been answering for you. TA-ZH1ES does better than Ha-1 in tonal body, soundstage, layering, and details. You will notice the improvements accross the board from HA-1. Ofcourse, the pricing is higher on TA as well. The TA deliver a more realistic tonal body, warmth and smooth, with super-spherical holographical soundstage

However, I am still keeping my HA1, it has great Bluetooth capability for online streaming from my iPad to the home stereo system . At the desk for music and or gaming, the TA will handle both

 

[purk]

My bad, I have not been answering for you. TA-ZH1ES does better than Ha-1 in tonal body, soundstage, layering, and details. You will notice the improvements accross the board from HA-1. Ofcourse, the pricing is higher on TA as well. The TA deliver a more realistic tonal body, warmth and smooth, with super-spherical holographical soundstage

However, I am still keeping my HA1, it has great Bluetooth capability for online streaming from my iPad to the home stereo system

. At the desk for music and or gaming, the TA will handle both

I'm with Whitigir here.  The TA-ZH1ES is a solid mid highend product where as the HA-1 is on the lower end of a high end product segment.  Beside the generous features including ins & outs, I heavily preferred the sound of the ZH1ES over the HA-1.  While the HA-1 can be considered dry and clinical tonally, the ZH1ES is warmer, lusher, and with better tones all around.  Soundstage wise is a big step up on the ZH1ES.  The HA-1's soundstage is missing some depth causing the soundstage to be flatter in comparison.  The ZH1ES also has better layering with better sense refinement IMO.  The ZH1ES only fell a tad short when directly compared to a top end dedicated amp such as GS-X MKI or ECP L2 in term of shear sense of dynamics.  It can sound overly smooth and lack bites at times.  Still at the asking price, it is quite a bargain considering the all-in-one package as well as unsurpassed build quality.

 

[Daroid]

Thank you big-time Whitigir and Purk. I know it is hard to describe differences in audio by words only, but it helped me quite a bit. I suppose this was tested with DSEE HX in standard mode?
 
For those interested, I found this technical manual describing the S-Master Pro principles in much more detail: https://docs.sony.com/release/ES_STR_05_Final.pdf
It helped clear some stuff up for me like the DC phase linearization, which is still a misleading term, but has to do with how the phase characteristics of conventional amplifiers change at low frequencies when loaded with a low-impedance load (e.g. reactance).
 
Anyone had a chance to try this with a vinyl setup, e.g. output from the pre-amp into the TA-ZH1ES, or used the analog inputs in general? Any info on how they perform A/D conversion - bit depth, delta/sigma, SAR? discrete IC or proprietary FPGA implementation?
That's the only thing that I'm questioning right now, and the What Hi-fi review doesn't help, but I can't find out if this is just placebo talk and hearsay from other class D amps.

 

[Hooster]

However, I am still keeping my HA1, 

 
+1, even though I plan to get another DAC, and I use the headphone output as a pre out for my power amp. It is just beautifully made.
 
The Sony is really nice though.

 

[Daroid]

Don't know if it has been posted, but I found this page with some pretty nice close up pictures of the PCB:
http://news.mynavi.jp/news/2016/09/08/255/
 
The ADC they use is an AKM AK5572EN. It is the TOTL AKM ADC for 2 channel audio, and converts directly to DSD. It is 32 bits, SNR of 121 dB and THD+N at -112 dB.
So cut me some slack, what again is "wrong" with the analog input? Could anyone please shed some light on this. It really bugs me that What hi-fi made a comment on this without elaborating much on this.

 

[TnTMaN]

Thanks for the comparison! How does the Sony function as a stand alone DAC? I want to know as in the future, I might want to add a tube amp..etc

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[Gibraltar]

Don't know if it has been posted, but I found this page with some pretty nice close up pictures of the PCB:
http://news.mynavi.jp/news/2016/09/08/255/

The ADC they use is an AKM AK5572EN. It is the TOTL AKM ADC for 2 channel audio, and converts directly to DSD. It is 32 bits, SNR of 121 dB and THD+N at -112 dB.
So cut me some slack, what again is "wrong" with the analog input? Could anyone please shed some light on this. It really bugs me that What hi-fi made a comment on this without elaborating much on this. :evil:

Nothing wrong with it but it's not ideal to convert to digital and back again when all you really want is to amplify the analog signal. I believe someone earlier in this thread also said that the performance of the analog input was not as good as the digital.

 

[Daroid]

Nothing wrong with it but it's not ideal to convert to digital and back again when all you really want is to amplify the analog signal. I believe someone earlier in this thread also said that the performance of the analog input was not as good as the digital.

I can agree. But in what way does it affect it in reality? Is the sound harsh, congested, etc.? What equivalent amplifier would it bring the sound quality down to, just to have a point of reference?

 

[Whitigir]

I can agree. But in what way does it affect it in reality? Is the sound harsh, congested, etc.? What equivalent amplifier would it bring the sound quality down to, just to have a point of reference?

Well, what I see is that a real DAC has balanced out, and then you need a balanced in amplifier to take advantage of that. The TA can only accept RCA which is SE

 

[Daroid]

Well, what I see is that a real DAC has balanced out, and then you need a balanced in amplifier to take advantage of that. The TA can only accept RCA which is SE

My analog source (RIAA pre-amp, THEL Audio Phono-X) only has unbalanced output either way. Right now it is fed to a Ray Samuels XP-7. What I'm afraid of is whether it will sound better or worse with the TA-ZH1ES.

 

[Whitigir]

My analog source (RIAA pre-amp) only has unbalanced output either way. Right now it is fed to an Ray Samuels XP-7. What I'm afraid of is whether it will sound better or worse with the TA-ZH1ES.

That I can not say, but I think the point of TA is to allow you to listen to Vynil and turn table. My guess is that if you connect SE and find a way to use it, you will find out. But if you want TA to be a very dedicated analog amp, the TA is not. That is because very dedicated analog devices from DAC to Amp will both offer balanced XLR 3 in and out per channel. The TA does not.

 

[Daroid]

That I can not say, but I think the point of TA is to allow you to listen to Vynil and turn table. My guess is that if you connect SE and find a way to use it, you will find out. But if you want TA to be a very dedicated analog amp, the TA is not. That is because very dedicated analog devices from DAC to Amp will both offer balanced XLR 3 in and out per channel. The TA does not.

I understand. Thank you, that makes sense. The reason why I'm even considering the TA is that I want to also use it with my Oppo UDP-203, since it does not have any headphone amplifier circuitry and the DAC inside - while good - is not meant to be as good as it could be. I did not consider the UDP-205, which would most likely still lack very much in the headphone amp section.
Finding integrated headphone amps and DAC combos (with remote control) where the DAC is not an afterthought is really hard.
 
Anyways, did you try out the analog input yourself?

 

[Whitigir]

I understand. Thank you, that makes sense. The reason why I'm even considering the TA is that I want to also use it with my Oppo UDP-203, since it does not have any headphone amplifier circuitry and the DAC inside - while good - is not meant to be as good as it could be. I did not consider the UDP-205, which would most likely still lack very much in the headphone amp section.
Finding integrated headphone amps and DAC combos (with remote control) where the DAC is not an afterthought is really hard.

Anyways, did you try out the analog input yourself?

I have not tried the analog input myself yet. That is because ATM, I don't have any uses for it.

 

[fa02]

How is the pairing with the Audeze LCD2 ? (I have read some impressions withe the LCD-XC, but not with the LCD2)