When the cassette was originally invented, it allowed companies to develop portable music devices that consumers could take with them anywhere. This eventually spawned CD players and inveitably MP3 players were born. The invention of the original iPod helped popularize these devices, and for many years people carried around some type of portable music device. The advent of smartphones then allowed us to have one device that did everything, and that’s pretty much the standard today. However Sony is taking a pretty big leap with their new Walkman, as they are hoping that users will go back to using a separate portable device that is just designed for music. So what is this Walkman all about?
Sony, along with others, felt that current smartphones are not cabale of producing the best sound music possible, and they’re right. So they developed the Walkman NW-ZX2 to give consumers a high-quality music device. This is the biggest push for the Walkman from Sony in recent years, and they are going all-in as their new device costs $1,200 dollars. Ouch. That’s nearly as much as a brand-new MacBook Pro.
The new Walkman is certainly the portable device for the modern man. It has a touchscreen display, Bluetooth capabilities, a 128GB solid state drive, a microSD slot, and it even runs a version of the Android operating system. But most importantly, this device is all about delivering high-quality sound. The device is capable of playing most standard music formats, like Mp3’s and the high-quality FLAC files. These lossless music formats are worlds better than what is heard through say, Spotify or a traditional CD. Additionally Sony has given the device many premium audio features. They’ve added a S-Master HX high-res amp, a digital sound enhancement engine, a gold-plated copper chassis to help deliver quality sound, and a variety of other features that enable their new Walkman to arguably be the best digital portable music device that has ever been released. Of course you cannot really appreciate the devices features unless you have a solid pair of studio-grade headphones, but if you’re planning on spending $1,200 on a portable music device I’m sure you’ve got some decent headphones.
So no matter how you look at it, the Sony Walkman NW-ZX2 is arguably the nicest portable music device of all time. However the real question is whether it will catch on? Are consumers really willing to spend that much on a second portable device to carry around? I’m sure there are plenty of audiophiles that are looking forward to getting their hands on this device, but outside of that niche market, I’m not quite sure. Still if you demand the best sound music on the go, this new Walkman is your best bet.
Photo from Sony
