stereophile.com n August2019 105
steropshil.soc.iit’s more of a SitInTheLimoMan.
Either way, it’s an elegant-looking
piece of kit finished mostly in gloss
black, with a color touchscreen in the
center of its top panel.
Dominating the DMP-Z1’s front
panel is a large, megabling, gold-
plated brass volume-control knob—
a window in the top panel reveals
even more of the knob. At the front
edge of the top panel, between the
volume control and the window,
are three buttons: Track Backward,
Play/Pause—this has a raised stud in
the center so you can find it without
looking—and Track Forward. To
the Volume knob’s right is another
button; pressing and holding it for
four seconds turns on the DMP-Z1.
To the knob’s left are two headphone
outputs: conventional single-ended
stereo on a 3.5mm jack, and balanced
stereo on Sony’s 0.17" Balanced-Stan-
dard jack. These can be set to Normal
or High Gain (+6dB).
The rear panel has a USB-C port
and a 19.5V DC jack for charging
the DMP-Z1’s internal battery. (TheA
pple may not have been the
first to market with a por-
table digital audio player,
but its original iPod defined
the genre: a device small enough to fit
into a shirt pocket. When companies
like Acoustic Research, Astell&Kern,
Fiio, HiFiMan, and Questyle intro-
duced portable players that could play
high-resolution files, they echoed the
iPod’s form factor. The exception was
the Toblerone-shaped PonoPlayer,
but even that was small. The subject
of this review is another exception:
The DMP-Z1, from Sony’s Signa-
ture Series, is comparatively enor-
mous—almost the size and weight
of a regular preamplifier. At $8500,
it’s also considerably more expensive
than other players.
A Walkman?
The last high-resolution music player
from Sony we reviewed was the
HAP-Z1ES ($2000), which Kalman
Rubinson wrote about favorably in
May 2014;^1 that player is intended to
be used in a conventional system. The
DMP-Z1 is described on Sony’s web-
site as a Walkman—though perhaps
Description Bluetooth-
equipped portable media
player/digital processor/
headphone amplifier with
3.1" (780mm) TFT color dis-
play, 256GB internal storage,
two microSD slots, internal
rechargeable lithium-ion
battery, and vibration-
isolating aluminum case. File
formats supported: MP3,
WMA, FLAC, WAV, AAC,
Apple Lossless, AIFF, APE,
DSD64/128/256, MQA.
Supported Bluetooth codecs:
SBC, LDA C, aptX, aptX HD.
DSP functions: 10-bandequalizer, tone control, DSEE
HX (upsamples standard-
definition data), DSD Remas-
tering (transcoded PCM to
DSD), Dynamic Normalizer,
Vinyl Processor. Input: USB
Type C (USB 2.0 compli-
ant). Outputs: stereo 3.5mm
headphone jack (single-end-
ed), 0.17” Balanced-Standard
jack (balanced). Frequency
range: 20Hz–40kHz.
Maximum output power:
570mWpc into 16 ohms
(single-ended output, High
Gain), 1.5Wpc (balanced
output, High Gain). Batterylife: 9–10 hours, depending
on file formats played. Bat-
tery charging time: approx.
4 hours. Supplied acces-
sories: USB Type-CTM cable
(USB-A to USB-C), 19.5V
AC adapter, AC power cord,
carrying case, cleaning cloth,
Startup Guide Instruction
Manual.
Dimensions 5.44" (138mm)
by 2.69" (68.1mm) by 10.98"
(278.7mm) (WxHxD).
Weight: 5.49 lb (2.49kg).
Finish Black case with gloss-
black top, bottom, and front
panels, gold-plated volumecontrol and jack bezels.
Serial number of unit
reviewed 1000727, “Made in
Malaysia.”
Price $8500. Approximate
number of dealers: see sony.
com/electronics/walkman/
dmp-z1/buy. Warranty:
Limited; see sony.com/sup-
port for details or call the
Customer Experience Center
at (800) 222-SONY (7669).
Manufacturer
Sony Electronics Inc., 16530
Via Esprillo, San Diego, CA- Tel: (858) 942-2400.
Web: sony.com.
SPECIFICATIONS
JOHN ATKINSON
Sony DMP-Z1
DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER
1 See stereophile.com/content/sony-hap-z1es-
high-resolution-file-player.