Sony Electronics Unveils Two New Walkman with Enhanced Sound Quality and Longer Battery Life Including the NW-ZX707 Premium Walkman

[TheLostSwede]

Sony Electronics Inc. today announced two new music players, the NW-ZX707 as part of the ZX Series, and the NW-A306 as part of the A Series, to the Walkman family. Both players are designed for listeners to enjoy music the way the artist intended with high-quality sound with a sleek design. Built with updated components of high-end models, the NW-ZX707 offers astonishing sound quality. With enhanced battery life, balanced connection, a larger 5.0" (diag.) display, Wi-Fi compatibility for easy downloading and streaming functions, it is also portable and stylish for the most demanding music lover.

Inheriting the philosophy of the Signature Walkman, the NW-ZX707 has upgraded fine-tuned capacitors and a FTCAP3 (high-polymer capacitor) and a large solid high polymer capacitor which offers large capacitance and low resistance. While an OFC (Oxygen-Free Copper) milled block covering the digital block, allows the NW-ZX707 to bring listeners sound that appears to rise-up from silence. Additionally, a large 8 mm coil for balanced output creates an improved sound resolution across all frequencies. All four kinds of components stated here are also used in the latest Signature Walkman model.




NW-ZX707 integrates a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) Remastering Engine where PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio is resampled into an 11.2 MHz DSD, offering even more ways to enjoy music.

The NW-A306 is designed for discerning users looking for high quality sound and style. This stylish and compact music player lets consumers download and stream more of the music they love. With full Wi-Fi compatibility, lightweight design and with the comfort and function of both a 3.6" (diag.) display touch screen and tactile physical music controls, the NW-A306 is dedicated to delivering exceptional music experiences right from the user's pocket.

Made with a rigid aluminium frame and gold solder inside a precisely engineered chassis, the NW-A306 delivers clear, stable sound and solid bass.

Faithful sound reproduction
The S-Master HX digital amp technology, independently developed for Walkman is compatible with the native DSD format. It reduces distortion and noise across a wide range of frequencies, for rich and full-bodied sound, further enhanced by new high-quality sound lead free solder.

Just like the latest Signature Walkman model, both models apply a reflow solder containing gold, whose effect is significant in the overall improved sound localization and wider sound space.

To realize both music players' evolutionary sound, a dual clock, film capacitor and fine sound register have been precisely placed within each Walkman.

Updated DSEE Ultimate for Enhancing Streaming Music Quality
The NW-ZX707 and the NW-A306 both use Edge-AI (Artificial Intelligence), DSEE Ultimate (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) which upscales compressed digital music files in real time. The evolving algorithm now delivers even greater benefits for CD-quality (16 bit 44.1/48 kHz) lossless codec audio. Restoring acoustic subtleties and dynamic range provides a richer, more complete listening experience.

With further progress from its predecessor models, consumers can enjoy DSEE Ultimate for upscaling their music, whether it is Wi-Fi streamed or downloaded. Now listeners can also enjoy DSEE Ultimate with wireless headphones.

The NW-ZX707 and the NW-A306 both feature a longer battery life compared to previous models so listeners can immerse themselves in more of their music. The NW-ZX707 has a battery life of up to 25 hours of 44.1 kHz FLAC playback, up to 23 hours of 96 kHz FLAC High-Resolution Audio playback, or up to 22 hours even when streaming. The NW-A306 has a battery life of up to 36 hours of 44.1 kHz FLAC playback, up to 32 hours of 96 kHz FLAC high resolution audio playback, or even up to 26 hours with the streaming service apps to meet the demand of consumers.

Sustainability in Mind
Our products are not only designed to be stylish but also with the environment in mind. No plastic is used in the packaging material for the NW-ZX707 and the NW-A306, reflecting Sony's commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our products and practices.

Pricing and Availability
NW-ZX707 has a suggested retail price of $899.99 and is available now to purchase at Sony Electronics and other Sony authorized retailers.
NW-A306 has a suggested retail price of $349.99 and is available now to purchase at Sony Electronics and other Sony authorized retailers.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[AsRock]

$899.99 for a walkman, or even $350, pretty dam sad to see prices like this, glad i don't use them any longer in fact most wouldn't due to phones ?.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

$899.99 for a walkman, or even $350, pretty dam sad to see prices like this, glad i don't use them any longer in fact most wouldn't due to phones ?.

It's not a "walkman" in the sense you mean. It's a high res audio player that will slaughter the sound quality on any phone. To get a phone up to speed with this you'd need to add on a portable dac/amp can start at around 200 for a pretty good one and easily go all the way up to 1000.

This is actually also on the cheap end for these devices, even from Sony.

 

[TheLostSwede]

$899.99 for a walkman, or even $350, pretty dam sad to see prices like this, glad i don't use them any longer in fact most wouldn't due to phones ?.

I owned the Sony Walkman WM-EX1HG, which was a limited edition model that came out in 1994 and it would've been priced at around $450 in today's money.
I guess I should mention that I didn't pay full price for it, as someone in my class worked in a Hi-Fi store and got me a discount.
They seem to be selling for as much, or more, second hand now.

Sony Walkman WM-EX1HG Portable Cassette Player

Sony Walkman WM-EX1HG Portable Cassette Player

www.just-cassette.com

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I believe these are pretty much obsolete the way cell phone are used and features they have now days

 

[VSG]

Hi,
I believe these are pretty much obsolete the way cell phone are used and features they have now days

On the contrary, DAPs have become more popular after phones decided to forego wired audio.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Hi,
I believe these are pretty much obsolete the way cell phone are used and features they have now days

Nope. These are digital audio players that can handle things your cellphone cannot. Unless you are carying around a portable DAC/AMP combo that can cost hundreds to a grand and plugging your phone into that. These are completely different animals.

Just as your airpods cannot complete with 150-300 buck wired headphones let alone the ones that start at a thousand and go up.

 

[ThrashZone]

On the contrary, DAPs have become more popular after phones decided to forego wired audio.

Hi,
Audiophiles will always be sucker baits

Nope. These are digital audio players that can handle things your cellphone cannot. Unless you are carying around a portable DAC/AMP combo that can cost hundreds to a grand and plugging your phone into that. These are completely different animals.

Just as your airpods cannot complete with 150-300 buck wired headphones let alone the ones that start at a thousand and go up.

I've seen this called backpacks

 

[bearClaw5]

Hopefully these are dedicated players and not rebranded androids like they have done in the past.

$350 for the A series is a bit steep when they used to be $220.

 

[Dristun]

To each her own, but I kinda stopped seeing any use in dedicated portable players once I realized that when you're on the go there's way more benefit to "clarity of sound" in noise-cancelling headphones than spending money on the player and great wired cans. And the best of these noise-cancelling headphones are wireless anyway and aren't quite reaching the quality one would want from a great setup at home - what's the point in a walkman? I suppose if you have a quiet workplace or take walks in quite countryside, or some other sort of situation where you can't have a permanent setup in a quiet place this will do great but if you're commuting or even just walking in a city, noise-cancelling lets you hear more than any 1000$ walkman+good headphones combo can.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

To each her own, but I kinda stopped seeing any use in dedicated portable players once I realized that when you're on the go there's way more benefit to "clarity of sound" in noise-cancelling headphones than spending money on the player and great wired cans. And the best of these noise-cancelling headphones are wireless anyway and aren't quite reaching the quality one would want from a great setup at home - what's the point in a walkman? I suppose if you have a quiet workplace or take walks in quite countryside, or some other sort of situation where you can't have a permanent setup in a quiet place this will do great but if you're commuting or even just walking in a city, noise-cancelling lets you hear more than any 1000$ walkman+good headphones combo can.

That's what IEMs and CIEMs are for!

 

[L'Eliminateur]

i was reading all the bullshit outlandish stuff that makes no difference in the PR "milled OFC shield", it needed "virgin tears" and "tuned by greybeards" and thinking "if it's priced above a cellphone this is trash", and hooo boy Sony did NOT dissapoint, wth are those prices....

So you connect this to your bluetooth headphones and congrats, you just bought a "cellphone" sized device that can't do anything but play music via wifi, in fact, it does not even mention it has bluetooth....

i guess audiophools will always be audiophools

 

[thewan]

$899.99 for a walkman, or even $350, pretty dam sad to see prices like this, glad i don't use them any longer in fact most wouldn't due to phones ?.

Welcome to the real world. Those are actually a bargain and cheap when compared to nearly everything else in the audio industry.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

i was reading all the bullshit outlandish stuff that makes no difference in the PR "milled OFC shield", it needed "virgin tears" and "tuned by greybeards" and thinking "if it's priced above a cellphone this is trash", and hooo boy Sony did NOT dissapoint, wth are those prices....

So you connect this to your bluetooth headphones and congrats, you just bought a "cellphone" sized device that can't do anything but play music via wifi, in fact, it does not even mention it has bluetooth....

i guess audiophools will always be audiophools

Nobody interested in a highrez player is going to use bluetooth.

 

[shilka]

Anyone ranting about the drawbacks and downsides of DAP´s compared to a phone fail to see the advantages of a DAP

First you dont drain the battery of your phone with a DAP which i have found was a bit of a problem when i used my phone to listen to music it drained the battery too fast and yes i know i could fix that with a battery bank but that was not the point

Another advantage is they sound better than a cheap phones does and with the older Sony NW-A105 you could add in a microSD card up to 2 TB and since its on a DAP you wont run out of space on the phone with music

And the last major reason why a DAP is better in some cases is when you sleep as research has shown that people that sleep with their phones close to them tends to sleep worse and gets woken out of REM sleep far easier

That same research showed that the people that sleep with their phones off or in another room tends to have better sleep which is something i personally can confirm after i started to leave my phone in another room i got much better sleep

If you want or need to listen to music when you try to sleep a DAP is better for the simple reason that you cant send or receive texts or calls which leads to better sleep none of your drunk buddies can call you at 4 am with ramblings

And again you dont drain the battery or run out of space and it sounds way better than a cheap phone does

If you dont like DAP´s fine whatever but they still have a place and use case and anyone that want to use one is not stupid like somebody in here has hinted at
But arguing with such people is pigeon chess

Edit: i own the older Sony NW-A105 and two things i hate about it is the 5-6 hour battery life due to a power hog CPU and too much blootware in the OS that needs to be nuked
The second thing i hate is the EU volume cap which limits the volume and with some music its really hard to hear which is very annoying

I am looking forward to the new NW-A300 series and i hope the battery life will be better which it should since its a better battery and the new CPU draws less power
Now the OS just needs to have no blootware and i am going to buy one just NOT a EU version because of the volume cap

 

[KrazyT]

Phones are average/good for everything, audio, video, photos ... and it's ok for the most people.
If you want to push higher, you can with this kind of device, or real camera etc ...

 

[JustJohnny]

Boy can Sony still design beautiful hardware.

 

[ArcanisGK507]

I don't know how much engineering is required to develop one of these devices, including how many quality components are required to obtain high resolution audio... but what I am sure of is that with today's technological advances and the Miniaturization of components (Less materials for the same or better quality).... a reproduction of these costing 1000.00 is nonsense...

 

[Operandi]

i was reading all the bullshit outlandish stuff that makes no difference in the PR "milled OFC shield", it needed "virgin tears" and "tuned by greybeards" and thinking "if it's priced above a cellphone this is trash", and hooo boy Sony did NOT dissapoint, wth are those prices....

So you connect this to your bluetooth headphones and congrats, you just bought a "cellphone" sized device that can't do anything but play music via wifi, in fact, it does not even mention it has bluetooth....

i guess audiophools will always be audiophools

The prices are not hard to understand if you know how any of this works. Its a high-end DAC, and amp in portable metal enclosure, and its also low volume; its going to be expensive relative to mass production smartphones.

The high-end of anything is always expensive and past the point of dismissing returns, dosen't really mater what it is and stuff like this exists on the other side of spectrum, the recording and production side, where you are dealing with pre-amps and ADCs in instead of amps and DACs is that "audiophools" too?

 

[bearClaw5]

Anyone ranting about the drawbacks and downsides of DAP´s compared to a phone fail to see the advantages of a DAP

First you dont drain the battery of your phone with a DAP which i have found was a bit of a problem when i used my phone to listen to music it drained the battery too fast and yes i know i could fix that with a battery bank but that was not the point

Another advantage is they sound better than a cheap phones does and with the older Sony NW-A105 you could add in a microSD card up to 2 TB and since its on a DAP you wont run out of space on the phone with music

And the last major reason why a DAP is better in some cases is when you sleep as research has shown that people that sleep with their phones close to them tends to sleep worse and gets woken out of REM sleep far easier

That same research showed that the people that sleep with their phones off or in another room tends to have better sleep which is something i personally can confirm after i started to leave my phone in another room i got much better sleep

If you want or need to listen to music when you try to sleep a DAP is better for the simple reason that you cant send or receive texts or calls which leads to better sleep none of your drunk buddies can call you at 4 am with ramblings

And again you dont drain the battery or run out of space and it sounds way better than a cheap phone does

If you dont like DAP´s fine whatever but they still have a place and use case and anyone that want to use one is not stupid like somebody in here has hinted at
But arguing with such people is pigeon chess

Edit: i own the older Sony NW-A105 and two things i hate about it is the 5-6 hour battery life due to a power hog CPU and too much blootware in the OS that needs to be nuked
The second thing i hate is the EU volume cap which limits the volume and with some music its really hard to hear which is very annoying

I am looking forward to the new NW-A300 series and i hope the battery life will be better which it should since its a better battery and the new CPU draws less power
Now the OS just needs to have no blootware and i am going to buy one just NOT a EU version because of the volume cap

The NW-A105 is just a glorified cheap android phone. Anything you do on a phone besides call and text you can do on that.

Battery life on their unique models, such as the NW-A45 is much longer, 10+ hours.

 

[shilka]

One thing that sony has not stated and which is not mentioned in this article is the new CPU in the A300 series which is a 11nm Qualcomm QCS2290 which is way more power efficient than the older NXP i.MX.8M.mini 28nm CPU used in the A100 series

The NW-A105 is just a glorified cheap android phone. Anything you do on a phone besides call and text you can do on that.

Battery life on their unique models, such as the NW-A45 is much longer, 10+ hours.

The short battery life is due to all the blootware in the OS and the ancient 28nm CPU which is a power hog
Remove the blootware and replace the CPU and the battery goes way up maybe even back to the older players

The new battery is also better by the way which also helps

 

[claes]

Always been weird to me that people who spend $2000+ every couple of years because they like to play games (plus the cost of those games) claim that people who spend the same or similar so they can enjoy music are somehow morons, especially when audiophile stuff like this will last you a decade or more.

 

[ReallyBigMistake]

I just use youtube on my phone.......

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

The prices are not hard to understand if you know how any of this works. Its a high-end DAC, and amp in portable metal enclosure, and its also low volume; its going to be expensive relative to mass production smartphones.

The high-end of anything is always expensive, dosen't really mater what it is and stuff like this exists on the other side of spectrum, the recording and production side too, where you are dealing with pre-amps and ADCs in instead of DACs is that "audiophools" too?

Agree. A while back I bought a pair of Jerry Harvey Audio CIEMs. https://jhaudio.com/iem?group=custom

These things start at 750 and the standard ones can hit 3k, you can hit higher as well. That might seem crazy but it's not. So why do these cost this much? We Jerry created them back when he was the audio engineer for Van Halen. Turns out they were going deaf and something had to be done. So he designed these multi BA driver IEMs and had them custom fabricated. Turns out it works. These caught on and he ended up founding Ultimate Ears (later sold to logitech) and JH Audio. These are used by some of the biggest artists in music, sound engineers, and on and on and on.

People stare at those brands and the sticker on them and claim it's a rip off made by elves. But when you realize why it exists, and who they are actually selling to it makes total sense the price tag it carries.

Most people don't know what the market is and, justifiably, laugh at 3k HDMI cables but then assume this applies to everything gives sticker shock.

 

[AsRock]

Welcome to the real world. Those are actually a bargain and cheap when compared to nearly everything else in the audio industry.

Sucker everyday, they are no bargain, i am well aware of what the audio market is like.

Don't make them worth it just because they are "cheaper" than normal.

I owned the Sony Walkman WM-EX1HG, which was a limited edition model that came out in 1994 and it would've been priced at around $450 in today's money.
I guess I should mention that I didn't pay full price for it, as someone in my class worked in a Hi-Fi store and got me a discount.
They seem to be selling for as much, or more, second hand now.

Sony Walkman WM-EX1HG Portable Cassette Player

Sony Walkman WM-EX1HG Portable Cassette Player

www.just-cassette.com

Still don't mean it worth it. Sucker born everyday they say.

EDIT:

Maybe it's why i don't buy the stuff now more and stick to real HiFi and even then i like going second even then over paying.