I got this system as a replacement for my Hi-End hybrid tube amplifier, cd player and record player as I wanted something compact and easy to transport if I decided to move in the future ... I basically wanted to rip all my CD's and free space at home too.. To be honest I wasn't expecting much, but I was positively surprised! The system takes a while to break in - it sounds terrible out of the box so give it some time - I left it for a couple of days playing heavy sounding music, and it sounds great now. Sound is on the cold side as you would expect from Japanese audio brand but it is clinically precise - so acoustic, jazz and orchestral music sounds divine on it. Bit worse with busy pop and rock - I guess you can compensate this by choosing right speaker cables and speakers itself. I use KEF Q1's and XLO cables which are all known for cold sound.. Connections let you expand and send the Hi-Res audio to another amplifier if you choose so. There is few inputs so you can connect the TV, CD player or whatever you want. Shame about lack of Spotify Connect or Bluetooth, but I resolved it with additional PURE Jongo adapter. The only and major drawback is the control app which just doesn't seem to work on Apple devices. I am lucky to have a spare Sony Xperia phone which acts as a remote otherwise I would be stuck with constantly freezing app. So Sony engineers, PLEASE! fix the apple issue, otherwise it would be an excellent product ! J

I do really like what Sony have produced with this HDD player, however certain aspects have left me very frustrated. The file transfer software is very basic and failed a number of times. I 'phoned the helpdesk in the end who were helpful. I had over 4,000 tracks to transfer and left it running overnight, so don't expect anything too quick. It then took a good part of the following day to get the album art etc. Had to turn off and restart on a number of occassions for it too eventually work through the admittedly large number of tracks. Finally, it seemed to have done a very strange thing - the Number 1 track appeared to be missing from a great many of the albums. I eventually twigged to what had happened when I saw there were over 400 tracks the Unknown Artist subdirectory. I am now labouriously working through trying to get them back to where they belong - whether this is a weakness of Gracenote, how they were stored on my computer or the HAP-S1 who knows? But the sound is good, the interface also. The 'phone app seems to work very well.

I bought to replace defunct digital anaologue converter which I used for separate CD & DAB players and for connecting a PC to an existing amplifier. Unfortunately I cannot use the Sony as a pass through DAC with external sources if not using as an amplifier. This is a serious omission as I would suspect most people would be purchasing the Sony to fit in with existing kit. So in my case my it hasn't fullfilled all my requirements as I still need a separate DAC. However I like the idea of being able to store FLAC files to player and this has greatly improved access and selection of my music collection, especially using the app on a pad. Surprisingly I am using the Sense-Me feature more frequently and do enjoy it's results. So, overall it's a great product and is a joy to use but I feel limits it's appeal to those wanting to replace a system rather than add to an existing one.