Sony new stereo range

[cjr]

Some interesting bits of kit in this including a £2K Sony ES amplifier .....

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/home-cinema-receivers

The HAP-S1 at £799 seems like a interesting bit of kit:

 

[craigmclellan]

I *would* have bought the integrated amplifier, but it doesn't have a tape loop.

NO SALE!

 

[jon]

Wonder how big the market will be for a £2k DSD hard drive player.

 

[TLS]

The Sony is 80w/ch. and weight 18kg. It sells for $2000 US.

The Supernait 2 is 80w/ch. and weight 13.4kg. It sells for around $5,000 US.

Naim have competition here at least when you look at the numbers!

 

[dfa2124]

Deleted

 

[meridian man]

That s1 is beautiful, a match for naims unitiqute2 ???

 

[browellm]

Very handsome stuff.

 

[Bazzer]

The future

 

[JamPal]

That s1 is beautiful, a match for naims unitiqute2 ???

Not really. Nothing could be a fugly as the Naim. The Sony kicks it into the dust before you've even heard it.

 

[James Evans]

Lovely looking kit. Odd though that the 2k dsd player doesn't have dac inputs.

 

[cjr]

Power envelope of the HAP-S1 looks quite small .... 20-25W in 8ohm mode if this is anything to go by .....

Output Power

40W + 40W (10%, 1kHz, 4Ohm)

Mind you here are the power specs of the £2K amp ... all a tad confusing .....

8Ohms 20-20kHz

80W+80W

4Ohms 20-20kHz

80W+80W

If it is 40W then it is quite reasonable.

So much you could do with this, nice USB pen drive full of files ....... even FLACs/WAVs etc of your favourite music :

 

[davidcotton]

I assume that this would be a step up in sound quality over a squeezebox and ironically it would have been a no brainer about a year ago. The bit I can't wrap my head around is why include a 500 - 1tb option in it. Why not just make it a streamer. You have to have the computer on to transfer (wired or ethernet)the content over, so why would you need an on board storage solution (I suppose as a standalone it makes sense sort of). The other bit that get's me is the price sony (and others to be fair)charge for hard drive prices. You can get 1tb drives for under £60 fairly easily now, and the 500 gigs must be even cheaper.

This reminds me of the cambridge audio/hifidelio units of a few years ago.

Been toying with the idea of this replacing my squeezebox touch/denon dm39 unit combo but not sure if it would be worth it tbh. If I were starting from scratch though this would be right up there.

Oh and there is a short video of this on youtube if you do a search with the model name.

 

[legzr1]

Nice to see Sony playing the 80's midi-hifi game with power outputs - 10% distortion at 1khz? Wtf?

That must be near 3Kw (PMPO)...

 

[HoopsOnToast]

As a massive fan of the older Sony ES amps, this looks exactly like all the more recent 'ES' stuff, nothing special.

For £2k I would be heading towards Denon if I wanted a mainstream Japanese Battleship with lots of features/inputs

 

[craigmclellan]

I agree with hoopsontoast.

I will, however, be demoing one somehow and if it is good, I will buy one to try and do my bit to get hifi taken seriously by the masses. Of course, mastering needs to be done properly as well...

I cannot see it ultimately happening on a big enough scale, but, we can all dream and hope.

 

[cjr]

As a massive fan of the older Sony ES amps, this looks exactly like all the more recent 'ES' stuff, nothing special.For £2k I would be heading towards Denon if I wanted a mainstream Japanese Battleship with lots of features/inputs

The Denon is a cracker I know, anyway I posted to alert people to the range, just seen it advertised on eBay.

 

[mikedefacto]

No phono stage! wtf?

 

[PeteVid]

The S1 looks nice but high in price compared to the Denon Ceol range ( I have three of them round the house) and the equivalent Marantz products. They don't have hard drives built-in , as David Cotton said I don't think you need them when you can stream and connect USB sticks, which these days can be tiny. The Denon and Marantz products also have airplay and Internet radio. I presume the Sony S 1 is a Class D amp like the Denon.