Importing files to iMac

If the HAP-Z rips SACDs as high rez that would be very big news. My understanding is that Sony has long held a strong position against the idea of ripping SACDs because of their interest in the sale of SACDs with their music biz. 
For many years the only way that anyone(and a small number) ripped SACD in high rez is by hacking a Sony Playstation of a certain vintage and doing some tweaking of the files. This is well documented online. Recently a similar routing to rip SACDs from Oppo players has gained popularity. You can find details on CA etc.
Contrary to @dbphd 's experience, IMHE it would be erroneous to conclude that ripped redbook layer from dual layer SACDs sound like SACD. Ripped SACD ISOs converted to 24/88 or 24/176 often sound like SACD, but occasionally get screwed up during the conversion process depending on the software used and settings (For me it's sometimes confusing!).
Many players show on their digital display during playback if the current song is SACD, HDCD etc. Does the HAP do that? If so at least it would be easy to confirm what the playback is looking at, 16/44, SACD or something else. Cheers,
Spencer

@sbank No idea whether the Sony HAP-Z1ES can handle ripped SACDs.  But it handles DSD downloads pretty well.  Who needs to mess with physical disks at this point, short of archiving?  I've already put my CDs onto the Sony internal drive, and I ain't going back to physical media for digital (vinyl's another story).  

The Sony app, which works very well, shows the file resolution in the track listings.  The highest resolution it handles, as far as I know, is DSD 5.6Mhz, as with the recent Bill Evans "Some Other Time" album, currently playing on the Sony.  I'm hoping that firmware updates from the inscrutable Sony world will continue to keep this player at least mid-fi relevant.

Spencer,

The statement I can make without fear of dispute is that I don't know what the Sony HAP-Z1ES does, but whatever it does, the sound satisfies me.

My principal SACD player is an Ayre C-5xeMP in another setup.  Neither the HAP-Z1ES nor the XA5400ES quite matches it, but the HAP does sound very similar to the Sony disc player.

db  

Here are a few other options to get best quality transfers.
At the advise of acousticsounds.com, I purchased a Mercury Pro optical drive from OWC and transfer Redbook CDs directly to the HAP-Z1ES in .wav format.
Acousticsounds.com also recommended JRivers software which allows you to up-convert Redbook CD to DSD which can then be transferred to the HAP-Z1Es. JRivers software has many other useful features as well.

Transferring any material in MP3 kind of defeats the advantage of having the HAP-Z1ES. Stay with a lossless format such as AIFF, FLAC, DSD etc.

I've managed to rip an SACD using FLAC with XLD and the tracks show up in an XLD window on my iMac, but I don't know how to make the HAP transfer app find the file.  It seems to look for files in iTunes.

db