{"id":636077,"date":"2026-10-20T07:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636077\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T07:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:56:11","slug":"sony-updates-the-walkman-as-a-5900-gold-plated-mp3-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636077\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony updates the Walkman as a $5,900 gold-plated MP3 player"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    <a data-tag=\"personal tech\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/tag\/personal%20tech\" class=\"lab-article-section-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"\" class=\" lab-article-section lab-article-section-top \">\n                    personal tech\n                <\/p>\n<p>                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle below\" style=\"\">\n        That price buys you an Android 16 device which can display an animated cassette\n    <\/p>\n<p>Sony last week revived its famed Walkman brand of portable music players, with a trio of updated products that feature Android 16, touch screens, eye-popping prices, and dubious assertions of audiophile appeal.<\/p>\n<p>The Japanese giant named the new models the NW-WM1ZM3, NW-WM1AM3 and NW-ZX900. All can store and play many codecs, including MP3s, WMA, and FLAC files, plus others like Direct Stream Digital (DSD) and Apple Lossless, which use various tricks to avoid nasty artefacts accruing during the digitization process.<\/p>\n<p>Sony also says it has used \u201ckey components made from oxygen-free copper\u201d because that apparently delivers \u201cuncompromising sound quality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The machines also include \u201cscrews featuring a low-resistance gold-plated treatment \u2026 providing a stable ground connection that delivers powerful bass, an expansive soundstage and smooth, extended high frequencies.\u201d Sony claims even the cabling it\u2019s used in the devices \u201cfurther reduces noise and preserves signal integrity for rich, detailed sound.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re also housed in carefully-milled slabs of copper \u2013 gold-plated in the case of the NW-WM1ZM3 \u2013 because that apparently improves sound, too.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5304056.webp\" width=\"480\" height=\"274\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n            Sony&#8217;s three new Walkman models<\/p>\n<p>And then Sony\u2019s gone and spoiled it all by offering Bluetooth connectivity, a notorious music-mangler, in addition to wired headphone ports.<\/p>\n<p>Sony\u2019s US site <a href=\"https:\/\/electronics.sony.com\/audio\/c\/walkman-digital-recorders?srsltid=AU7gw4XvZItAeKzPU825Nrzne8ZC0ntzi3_h5zF1w8xD9Z_Y5kv9ReBg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">lists<\/a> all three devices, which run Android 16 and include Wi-Fi so they can access streaming music services. All are USB-chargeable and Sony claims their batteries allow 30-odd hours of music playback.<\/p>\n<p>The NW-ZX900 packs a five-inch touch screen and 64GB of onboard memory. It\u2019s the baby of the range at just $1,900.<\/p>\n<p>The NW-WM1AM3 will set you back $3,000, which buys 128GB of memory and a 5.5-inch screen.<\/p>\n<p>The flagship NW-WM1ZM3 has the same size screen and includes 256GB of memory. It\u2019s also a \u2018Droid.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t bother trying to put these under a Christmas tree because Sony says it will ship them mid-January. \u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"personal tech That price buys you an Android 16 device which can display an animated cassette Sony last&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-636077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}