New Android 12-powered Sony Walkmans: cool looks and high prices

[midian182]

What just happened? If you remember recording songs from the radio onto cassette so you could listen to them later using a chunky portable tape player, here's some nostalgia-fuelled good news: Sony has released two new versions of its iconic Walkman. But there's no need to carry a pencil to fix any unspooled cassettes; these are the latest Android-powered devices from a series that Sony has been making for the last decade.

Like other digital music players, the NW-A300 and NW-ZX700 can play streamed and downloaded music. They're powered by Android 12, enabling support for apps such as Spotify, and, according to Sony, offer "evolutionary sound."

The much cheaper of the two Walkmans, the NW-A300, costs 46,000 yen (about $360) in Japan and 399 euros (about $430) in Europe. It has a small 56.6 × 98.5 × 12 mm footprint that Ars Technica notes is about the size of a pack of cards, a 3.6-inch 1280 × 720 (60 Hz) touchscreen LCD, Wi-Fi 802.11AC, and Bluetooth 5. Port-wise, there's USB-C 3.2 Gen1, a MicroSD slot, and a headphone jack.

The NW-A300 is powered by an unnamed quad-core Qualcomm SoC with 4GB of RAM. Sony promises 36 hours of 44.1 kHz FLAC playback and up to 32 hours of 96 kHz FLAC High-Resolution Audio playback, though that's presumably with the screen turned off.

The high-end NW-ZX700 model is aimed at audiophiles, something reflected in its 104,500 yen ($818) price. Sony tries to justify that amount by adding a proper audio amplifier and large capacitors that power the analog audio output. It sports an 11nm Qualcomm QCS4290 with eight Kryo 260 CPUs and an Adreno 610 GPU, a 5-inch 1280 × 720 screen, 64GB of storage, and 23 hours of audio playback. There's also a 4.4 mm "balanced" audio jack sitting alongside the standard 3.5mm port.

Unsurprisingly, the NW-ZX700 is much larger at 72.6 × 132 x 17mm. Like the cheaper model, it has an S-Master HX digital amplifier chip. Both Walkmans use Sony's Artificial Intelligence-powered Edge-AI and DSEE Ultimate (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) to upscale compressed digital music files to a higher quality, and include a feature that adds vinyl sounds to a track. There's also a special cassette tape user interface and screensaver.

Both Walkmans are set to launch in Japan this February.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97273-new-android-12-powered-sony-walkmans-cool-looks.html

 

[wildfirede]

Pencil sold separately.

 

[nismo91]

This is a niche market. there's always customers but the numbers are very small.

 

[StrikerRocket]

$818? Really Sony? For about half that price, I bought a Topping A50S and D50S... Ok, it's not portable, but the specs are much better.
For nomad use, I have a *very* small Shanling player that doubles as a USB DAC if you want it to. Meh...

 

[Fearghast]

TBH, I rather buy something made by Shanling, Tempotec, FiiO or any other real hires player than overpriced, under delivering, Sony with features like DSEE, that pretty much destroy music. Sony even has the bravery to market it as a useful feature.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Speaking of cassettes, I got to hit up a small store that sold used DVD/BluRay movies, had a spackling of older console games (mostly sport games) for the NES and SNES, had some PSX, PS2 and PS3 games and so on, also vinyl records (new and used) and it also had a couple hundred cassettes. Lots of memories in that store.

I walked out with 3 dozen movies and the wife found all 10 seasons of Friends, all of it for about $100. More movies and shows to put on my Plex server. What's a few more to build up my library of 1000+ movies already and 32 full TV series.

For this device, I wouldn't spend a dime on it. If it had the ability to also play cassettes on top of the other features, then it might something I'd consider. I've got a handful of old cassettes just tucked away in a box somewhere, but I've no cassette player to play them.

 

[p51d007]

I just stream from my phone.

 

[ferrellsl]

You'd have to have more money than brains to buy this. A flagship cell phone would be infinitely more useful and provide comparable sound quality for the $818 retail price

 

[yRaz]

Speaking of cassettes, I got to hit up a small store that sold used DVD/BluRay movies, had a spackling of older console games (mostly sport games) for the NES and SNES, had some PSX, PS2 and PS3 games and so on, also vinyl records (new and used) and it also had a couple hundred cassettes. Lots of memories in that store.

I walked out with 3 dozen movies and the wife found all 10 seasons of Friends, all of it for about $100. More movies and shows to put on my Plex server. What's a few more to build up my library of 1000+ movies already and 32 full TV series.

For this device, I wouldn't spend a dime on it. If it had the ability to also play cassettes on top of the other features, then it might something I'd consider. I've got a handful of old cassettes just tucked away in a box somewhere, but I've no cassette player to play them.

I say this as someone with a stereo that costs more than a new car, this stuff is a joke. At the heart of these devices is a DAC, in the early 80's and early 90's good DACs were VERY expensive and difficult to make. The reason for this is that there is a series of resistors in a DAC that need to be made with in VERY tight tolerances. This use to be difficult but manufacturing high quality DACs has become trivial. This likely has an off the shelf DAC paired with a decent internal amp. Bill of materials on this is probably $30-40.

People in the Hi-Fi community are incredibly toxic, more so than gamers. Realistically $2000 is all you need to spend to have an "audiophile" home audio experience. I'm in the $30,000 range but that's because I like to collect vintage audio. When I tell people looking to build out a home audio system, the first $2000 you spend is for your ears, everything else is for your ego. A high end smartphone has a DAC on par or better and maybe even made in the same factory as the one in this "walkman"

 

[Kashim]

This will never go anywhere. They'll sell a few and then it will fade into oblivion. The same fate as many, many other Sony experiments that failed miserably.

 

[kiwigraeme]

I say this as someone with a stereo that costs more than a new car, this stuff is a joke. At the heart of these devices is a DAC, in the early 80's and early 90's good DACs were VERY expensive and difficult to make. The reason for this is that there is a series of resistors in a DAC that need to be made with in VERY tight tolerances. This use to be difficult but manufacturing high quality DACs has become trivial. This likely has an off the shelf DAC paired with a decent internal amp. Bill of materials on this is probably $30-40.

People in the Hi-Fi community are incredibly toxic, more so than gamers. Realistically $2000 is all you need to spend to have an "audiophile" home audio experience. I'm in the $30,000 range but that's because I like to collect vintage audio. When I tell people looking to build out a home audio system, the first $2000 you spend is for your ears, everything else is for your ego. A high end smartphone has a DAC on par or better and maybe even made in the same factory as the one in this "walkman"

Ignoring my headphones and their Dacs = I'm around $5000 for main room set up - I do wonder about those expensive setups - If you are going to listen in a massive room - imagine costs will go up - but in you choose a small to medium room - you can get a great system for $2000 - yes you won't have a classical orchestra in your room - but do you want to go deaf ? - givens such music can have a humongous range - from very quiet to 120 decibels plus ( if you want that real life effect ).

 

[yRaz]

Ignoring my headphones and their Dacs = I'm around $5000 for main room set up - I do wonder about those expensive setups - If you are going to listen in a massive room - imagine costs will go up - but in you choose a small to medium room - you can get a great system for $2000 - yes you won't have a classical orchestra in your room - but do you want to go deaf ? - givens such music can have a humongous range - from very quiet to 120 decibels plus ( if you want that real life effect ).

It's an ego thing. My one pair of 4311s get uncomfortably LONG before they get distorted and I'm the type of person who likes to rattle my neighbors windows. For $2000 you can get a great pair of studio monitors or loudspeakers plus an AMP. That sounds like a lot of money at first but you can make a 1 time purchase and have it the rest of your life. It's not like buying a $2000 graphics card that'll be obsoleted in 24-36 months.

My current 4311+marantz 3800 goes back to when I still had a plasma TV. Early 2000s I put this setup together for ~$700 but today it's worth around $9000.

I do have countless other amps and loudspeakers from the late 60s to mid 80s. See something worth money, give a guy $100 for it it, he's happy and I have a new amp or set of speakers.

I'm actually working on wiring up some of my other speakers and amps into a surround sound setup but I honestly don't really see the point. I've never heard a surround sound setup that left me wanting for more or made me feel like I was missing out

 

[Dyson Parkes]

Pencil sold separately.

I'm mildly surprised there isn't a small stylus slotted into the device with the generic yellow/pink pencil look on it. They do seem to be leaning into the nostalgia angle with the UI.

 

[Sir Sparkles]

I'm mildly surprised there isn't a small stylus slotted into the device with the generic yellow/pink pencil look on it. They do seem to be leaning into the nostalgia angle with the UI.

Yeah, maybe a little crank handle on the side.

 

[ddferrari]

Sony has always made really cool portable devices- but what can this do that my Samsung smartphone can't do reasonably well? I doubt much...

 

[ddferrari]

I say this as someone with a stereo that costs more than a new car, this stuff is a joke. At the heart of these devices is a DAC, in the early 80's and early 90's good DACs were VERY expensive and difficult to make. The reason for this is that there is a series of resistors in a DAC that need to be made with in VERY tight tolerances. This use to be difficult but manufacturing high quality DACs has become trivial. This likely has an off the shelf DAC paired with a decent internal amp. Bill of materials on this is probably $30-40.

People in the Hi-Fi community are incredibly toxic, more so than gamers. Realistically $2000 is all you need to spend to have an "audiophile" home audio experience. I'm in the $30,000 range but that's because I like to collect vintage audio. When I tell people looking to build out a home audio system, the first $2000 you spend is for your ears, everything else is for your ego. A high end smartphone has a DAC on par or better and maybe even made in the same factory as the one in this "walkman"

Wow, the ego never ends, new-money boy.

"I'm in the $30,000 range but that's because I like to collect vintage audio."

Daddy- thanks for selling all that oil and allowing me to abuse women, too!

 

[yRaz]

Wow, the ego never ends, new-money boy.

"I'm in the $30,000 range but that's because I like to collect vintage audio."

Daddy- thanks for selling all that oil and allowing me to abuse women, too!

I'm talking about current market value, I aquired the stuff over the years. My dad got me into vintage audio and I expanded on his collection after he died. It wasn't really until ~2012-2015 that people started to realize what they had and the prices went up. I'm probably $6000 into the whole thing and $30,000 is what I estimate it at at current market prices. The only parts I spent really money on were a modern pair of Klipshe RF7- II's and even those have tripled in price in the last few years on the used market.

But It's also a hobby for me. I'll get old amps and speakers and sometimes they're in rough shape. It's fun to restore old speaker cabinets and amplifiers. It's easy enough to recap the old amps and do LED conversions. for $10 in caps I can turn a $50 broken amp into something work $300-400. That said, I've never actually sold anything from my collection and times will have to get pretty hard for me to do that.

 

[Axle Grease]

I just stream from my phone.

But the new Walkman offers much more ̶l̶I̶m̶I̶t̶e̶d̶ dedicated functionality.

 

[Tams80]

You know, some people just want a separate device that has good quality. Both of these models provide that.

If you aren't interested in this, fine, just don't buy one. No one needs to know or cares that you stream music, so I'm not sure why you're bothering to post that.

But there is a sizeable market out there of people who do, and they are prepared to pay a premium for a device from the likes of and reputation of Sony.

Anyway, USB C, at last.

 

[Lounds]

Anyone else think 64GB of internal storage for a Walkman is a pathetic? I know streaming is more popular nowadays but still there's loads of people with their CD collections stored on their computers etc.

 

[Axle Grease]

You know, some people just want a separate device that has good quality. Both of these models provide that.

If you aren't interested in this, fine, just don't buy one. No one needs to know or cares that you stream music, so I'm not sure why you're bothering to post that.

But there is a sizeable market out there of people who do, and they are prepared to pay a premium for a device from the likes of and reputation of Sony.

Anyway, USB C, at last.

My old galaxy S9+ has USB C, and 256GB of internal storage. When I pair it with Sony noise cancelling headphones (mine is a wh1000mx5) I get good quality sound indoors and outdoors. How do you know the audio quality is better with these walkmans than my S9 while listening through the same headphones?

 

[nismo91]

My old galaxy S9+ has USB C, and 256GB of internal storage. When I pair it with Sony noise cancelling headphones (mine is a wh1000mx5) I get good quality sound indoors and outdoors. How do you know the audio quality is better with these walkmans than my S9 while listening through the same headphones?

it doesn't because the WHXM5 already has its own DAC. it only receives the music from the phone, not the audio signal. it's like a file transfer, it doesn't matter whether the music is coming from a 99$ phone, $999 phone or $1999 phone, the headphone will process the file and produce the same sound regardless.

this walkman is for those who uses 3.5mm analog headphones. probably designed for some old snobs who thinks no other android player can play hi-res audio files. or for some people who think they're gonna get better sound quality from spotify (no spotify hi-fi yet till today) using this kind of device. not to worry it's a japan only release so it's hardly surprising. remember they are still using faxes over there, I mean they just live differently.

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

My mojo 2 is gonna humiliate this overpriced piece of nostalgia

 

[kiwigraeme]

My mojo 2 is gonna humiliate this overpriced piece of nostalgia

I have the Mojo V1 currently just sitting in drawer - really happy sound . On my PC I use a Hugo 2 - more convenient as in place DAC - can easily power any of my headphones .
If I was commuting on public transport - would use my Mojo maybe ( probably with Sony's latest noise cancelling headphones - as most of mine are open.

I still have some Sony Mini Disc player some where - were great for travelling - but my yellow Sony sports Walkman- got me through a lot of years on the road - only retired it for the Mini Disc - Quarters use to important the USA - well AA batteries were a way to spent for last pesos before crossing the border ( torches , SW Radio, small alarm clock , Walkman, portable speakers , brides, gift ) -Was super efficient to run

 

[toooooot]

It was amazing watching audio quality in phones improve over the year. It would be interesting to compare sound quality of this device to say a top Samsung phone.
Strange that they did not use oled