Sony DMP-Z1 digital music player

Apple may not have been the first to market with a portable 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 introduced 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 ($9,999), from Sony’s Signature Series, is comparatively enormous— almost the size and weight of a regular preamplifier.

It’s also considerably more expensive than other players.

A Walkman?

The DMP-Z1 is described on Sony’s website as a Walkman—though perhaps it’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 gold-plated brass volume knob.

At the front edge of the top panel are three playback buttons.

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-Standard jack.

The DMP-Z1 charges via USB-C and the player’s 256GB of internal storage can be supplemented with two microSD cards.

Playing music

Other than four physical buttons, everything is controlled with the DMP-Z1’s touchscreen.

The Library screen shows what music is stored on the player; this screen also allows the user to select the USB DAC and Bluetooth Receiver functions.

When a song is playing, the screen in Standard mode shows the cover art and song info.

Other modes are Spectrum Analyzer (octave bands plus a couple extra) and Analog Level Meter.

Inside the box

The DMP-Z1 uses a pair of Asahi Kasei Microdevices AK4497EQ DAC chips, a 32-bit part operating with PCM data at sample rates up to 768kHz, and DSD data sampled at up to 22.4MHz.

The DMP-Z1 offers a variety of DSP functions: a 10-band graphic equalizer; bass, midrange, and treble tone controls; DSEE HX, which upsamples lossy-compressed and CD-definition data;

DSD Remastering, which transcodes PCM data to 5.6MHz DSD; a Dynamic Normalizer, which minimizes loudness differences for different tracks; and a Vinyl Processor—this last said to produce “rich sound that is close to the playback from a vinyl record on a turntable.”

As well as a standard setting, Vinyl Processor can be customized with adjustments for surface noise, tonearm resonance, and turntable resonance.

Setup

I don’t have headphones fitted with Sony’s Balanced-Standard TRRS jack plug, so for my auditioning I used the 3.5mm stereo output jack.

I didn’t need to use the player’s High Gain mode with the low-impedance Audeze LCD-X and AudioQuest NightHawk

headphones, though it did help with the high-impedance Sennheiser HD 650s.

As the Sony has two slots for microSD cards, I first tried to play familiar music files stored on two cards I’d been using with my PonoPlayer.

However, the DMP-Z1 couldn’t find the files on these cards.

I reformatted the cards with the DMP-Z1 and recopied the music files to them from my laptop.

Still no joy.

Farther down the relevant page of the manual it says, “Sony does not guarantee the operation of all types of compatible microSD cards with the player”.

Listening to filters

The DMP-Z1’s filter options complicated the auditioning.

Nevertheless, I spent the best part of a day auditioning the Sony’s six reconstruction filters, in the process draining the DMPZ1’s battery from fully charged to 19%.

Differences between filters were more difficult to hear at higher sample rates.

I used Short Delay Fast for most of my listening, checking out the other filters when I felt the sound of a familiar track wasn’t quite what I’d expected.

For classical orchestral music, I most often used Low Dispersion Short Delay.

An unbalanced comparison

It may seem absurd to compare the $9,999 Sony with the Pono, but I’ve racked up more hours listening through headphones with the Pono than with any other product.

With the Audeze LCD-Xes, which are more revealing than the AudioQuest NightHawks, the high frequencies had more top-octave air with the DMP-Z1.

At the other end of the spectrum, bass had a weightier body tone through the Sony, though mid-treble sounded a touch smoother through the Pono.

A case of Authority (Sony) vs Acceptable (Pono).

Conclusion

When it comes to headphone sound quality, the Sony DMP-Z1 joins distinguished company — and it’s a Walkman!

Kind of.