The Sony Walkman is back (kind of)

[Nomelas]

When my phone can do all the same things I see no point in this product

[xAcid9]

I wonder how does it fare with similarly price AK100.

[Probenja]

Sony has never abandoned the Walkman brand, and they have always had a similar price compared to iPod's, this is a high end products with better specs than most mp3 players so I would guess that is the reason for the price and I would expect higher quality than an iPod as well.

[Chevaishr]

my cheapo chinese phone has a yamaha headphone amp in it, and it goes damn loud and plays good too. (bass is less than an htc one but i think the one may be over bassed with the whole beats thing ) 

[cubercaleb]

24bit player isn't really old tech. it's useless tech and a useless price. it's so hard to find alot of "legal" 24/192 files and when you do it's like 20 dollars more for "upsamples files" with almost every hdtracks file I heard. it sounds the sounds/looks the same on spectrogram to say amazon mp3.... fuck even when i turn those "hdtracks" files down into 300ish bitrate acc file. I can't tell the diff at fucking all. It's stupid.

Ever heard of CD's? 

[Kevinkt]

Ever heard of CD's? 

same thing? it's 16bit/44. it's "lower" than 24/192...

[Silent_Xaxal]

The Walkman wasn't really dead in the first place. While mp3 players were dropping like flies when smartphones came, audio device companies saw a profitable niche for selling lossless/high-bit rate audio players. There are now quite a number of companies that make these (And as stated above, Sony's offering isn't even the priciest. See Astell and Kern) and they've sold pretty darn well.

 

A little perplexing that it took this long to bring it into US shores. Must be because of the competition.

[AllstaRawR]

So to all of you audiophiles out there, is the ZX1 worth that $700 price tag?

 

Not at all. I really wonder what Sony was thinking. The DACs and amplifiers inside of high-end phones are rather good now, I'm not sure what market they think they will get. As long as you're not trying to drive 600 Ohm headphones with your iPhone or MotoX...

[Vacsol]

"I see no point in a Lamborghini when my Honda Civic drives me places too"

"Why should I spend $20 on a steak when McDonalds is only $3"

"Why would I play PC games when I can play the same games on my Xbox One?"

 

This is a product aimed at audiophiles who want high quality audio and are willing to pay a premium for it. I'm not necessarily one of those people but I get why people would buy this. While your phone might play music too, that doesn't mean it's comparable to a dedicated music device with high quality components. 

[cubercaleb]

"I see no point in a Lamborghini when my Honda Civic drives me places too"

"Why should I spend $20 on a steak when McDonalds is only $3"

"Why would I play PC games when I can play the same games on my Xbox One?"

 

This is a product aimed at audiophiles who want high quality audio and are willing to pay a premium for it. I'm not necessarily one of those people but I get why people would buy this. While your phone might play music too, that doesn't mean it's comparable to a dedicated music device with high quality components. 

While I agree with this I will have to add that most audiophiles either don't care about listening to music on the go because most headphones that are of any value are open back, while also being hard to drive. Any sort of mobile media player would be seen as a joke to them. Regardless, there are people who still wish for the best audio quality on the go. However I still see most mobile audiophiles looking towards the Fiio X5/3 and the range of Hifiman players.