So, why does the new Sony Walkman cost $1,120?
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Sony announced a new Walkman at CES 2015. And get ready for this – it’s priced at $1,119.99.
That will give pause to the vast majority of audiophiles. After all, you could buy almost two dozen iPod Shuffles for the price of the new Walkman NW-ZX2. Or, for the more discriminating listener, even a handful of pricier FiiO X5 players.
So, Sony has some explaining to do. And they tried to do just that at CES.
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“Every piece of material and component has been crafted to realize the ultimate Hi-Res Audio experience on the move,” said Mike Fasulo, president of Sony Electronics USA, at CES on Tuesday during the company’s keynote speech.
So, what is Hi-Res Audio, anyway? It refers to a group of very high-quality digital audio formats that try to banish lower-quality CD and MP3 formats to the pedestrian audio player market.
Hi-Res Audio is also a marketing term, which means it will always be a bit fuzzy as to why exactly you would want to part with $1,120 for audio that you could just hear on your iPhone, albeit at lower quality.
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But Sony seems ready to defend its pricing scheme.
In a Q&A with a Sony audio expert identified only as “Jeff” at CES, the obvious question was posed: “It looks beautiful but I have to ask, what makes this so premium?”
The Sony expert then launched into a long answer. Here are some of the highlights:
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– Quality: “It comes down to quality. Up until now people have been sacrificing quality for convenience,” the expert said.
– Display: It sports a 4-inch Sony Triluminos display.
– Android: It runs Android 4.2 (but that’s hardly a plus, since Android 4.2 was announced way back in 2012).
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– Audio engine: It includes Sony’s Digital Sound Enhancement Engine: “It will make everything sound better, even the MP3s,” according to the Sony expert,” he said.
– DSD: It supports Direct Stream Digital-Dff, a professional and uncompressed format that is used in recording and mastering Superior Audio CDs.
– Better bass: The device packs a powerful bass and “improved sense of stereo” due to better audio components, such as an improved power supply and the use of a large capacity Li-ion battery.
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– All formats: It supports “any kind of format that you can throw at it,” the expert said.
– Lots of aluminum: The Walkman boasts an aluminum chassis with genuine leather backing.
– And copper and gold: “Copper chassis inside that’s gold-plated for rigidity and reduction of noise…Very high-purity solder goes into it as well,” he said.
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– Storage: A 128GB of storage is the standard.
– Wireless: It supports NFC, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
If that convinces you the Walkman NW-ZX2 is worth more than $1,100, then it’s coming this spring.