Sony's $5,899 Gold-Plated Walkman: Is the Sound Worth the Price?

Sony has unveiled its top-end Walkman, the NW-WM1ZM3, with a US list price of $5,899. That is about 59% more than its 2022 predecessor, and it raises a pointed question: has the sound improved as much as the price?

The player is built around gold-plated, 99.99% pure oxygen-free copper, with upgraded wiring, power circuits and Sony's own S-Master HX digital amplifier. Yet some of the key specs did not move.

A Higher Price, Mixed Gains

The previous NW-WM1ZM2 listed at $3,699.99, so the new model costs roughly $2,199 more. Sony also sells the aluminum NW-WM1AM3 at $2,999.99, which shares much of the core audio technology. The gap of about $2,899 mostly reflects body material, internal structure and grounding design.

Official headphone output is unchanged from 2022: 60mW per channel on the 3.5mm jack and 250mW on the 4.4mm balanced port. The player weighs about 670g, roughly 180g more than before, because copper is denser than aluminum. Battery life dipped in some tests, from 40 to 35 hours for 128kbps MP3 and from 35 to 32 hours for 192kHz/24-bit FLAC. Storage stays at 256GB.

On the plus side, the new model adds a 5.5-inch full HD touchscreen, Android 16, a second large polymer capacitor in the power section and a look-ahead noise shaper. It can also convert PCM audio to 11.2MHz DSD, now including streaming music. But upsampling does not create information missing from the original recording, and a 2007 Audio Engineering Society study found listeners could not reliably tell high-resolution playback from a CD-quality conversion at normal listening levels.

The Walkman launched in 1979 at 33,000 yen and changed where people listen to music. Today's flagship sells a different promise: refinement and the pride of owning a premium object.

Why It Matters

The NW-WM1ZM3 shows how the high-end audio market prices craftsmanship, rarity and ownership alongside measurable performance. Whether a 59% jump delivers a matching leap in what you actually hear is something buyers will have to judge through real-world listening and comparisons.

Read the original article in Korean: K trendy NEWS