This Ain’t Your Granddad’s Sony Walkman

Nearly everyone knows the Sony Walkman name. The brand has existed since 1979, when Sony launched the original Walkman, a portable cassette player. While portable music players have effectively gone the way of the dodo thanks to smartphones, the Walkman is still kicking. And these days, it’s kicking in exorbitant style.

Sony just unveiled the Walkman NW-WM1ZM3, which it describes as its “flagship Walkman.” The Signature Series Walkman features the “highest quality components,” including a precision-machined, oxygen-free copper body with gold plating, a large 5.5-inch display, and everything an audiophile would want. All that technology comes with a wild price tag to match: $5,898.

The premium Walkman features Kimble Kable balanced wiring, Wi-Fi 6 streaming, support for diverse digital files, PC connectivity, 256GB of internal memory, 11.2 MHz/1-bit DSD, 384 kHz/32-bit PCM, and advanced audio processing. These audio processing features include a “vinyl processor” that promises a warmer, vinyl-like sound for digital audio files, a DC phase linearizer that applies digital signal processing to match the phase characteristics of six different analog amplifiers, and Sony 360 Reality Audio.

“Nothing else compares,” Sony says. At $5,900, hopefully that’s true.

Audiophiles, like camera enthusiasts, can care an awful lot about the small details. It’s a niche, specialized product space, to be sure. The Walkman NW-WM1ZM3 has large, solid high-polymer capacitors to keep power delivery stable, ultralow-noise amplification, hand-soldered wiring, film capacitors that deliver a linear voltage response across frequencies, and more. Sony has left no stone unturned, optimizing nearly every aspect of the Walkman’s design to deliver the best possible sound.

Obviously, this is nothing like the $29 Sony Walkman portable CD player I had in the late 90s. Sony is targeting a very small, passionate subset of audio fans with its new flagship NW-WM1ZM3.

“Designed for music enthusiasts and audiophiles, the new Walkman models are engineered to deliver exceptional sound and incorporate a wealth of premium audio components throughout their design,” Sony says.

“The NW-WM1ZM3 is built around a precision-machined, gold-plated oxygen-free copper (OFC) chassis, engineered specifically to further elevate the sound quality of this flagship model. It features a 99.99% (4N) purity OFC main chassis and an OFC rear chassis. These are secured with screws featuring a low-resistance gold-plated treatment applied exclusively for this model, providing a stable ground connection that delivers powerful bass, an expansive soundstage, and smooth, extended high frequencies. Thick KIMBER KABLE® wiring, inherited from Sony’s DMP-Z1, further reduces noise and preserves signal integrity for rich, detailed sound,” the company continues.

If that sounds too fanciful for the somewhat less audio-obsessed, Sony also unveiled two other (barely) less expensive Walkman music players this week. The NW-WM1AM3 ditches the gold plating but is still $2,998. Meanwhile, the cheapest option, the NW-ZX900, is a mere $1,898. No, these aren’t also phones. Yes, they only play music. They’re all available to order now and start shipping in January 2027.

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Image creditsSony