Sony Bringing Back Walkman - Plays HD Music

Sony unveiled a new Walkman on Tuesday that will deliver an exceptional audio experience—at an exceptionally high price.

The new Sony ZX2 Walkman will set audiophiles back by $1,119.99, Sony revealed at this weekâ€s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. According to Sony, the payoff comes with a clarity of sound that approaches master recordings in studio.

Unlike CDâ€s and MP3 files, which compress sound files into more manageable sizes, the new walkman will retain songs in “high resolution” (a typical song file weighs in at a hefty 150MB). That wider bandwidth allows for more sensitive recordings, “for a more authentic, emotionally involving musical experience,” Sony says.

Source: Sony Is Bringing Back the Walkman With One Huge Surprise

What do you think of the new Walkman? Is it something you'd be interested in getting? Is it worth the high price?

To be honest, if you're smart you can compress files down to not-too-much-bigger than standard MP3s and not lose too much quality, so to me this seems like a waste of money. You also need to consider that your HD music is only going to be as good as your headphones will allow as well, and if you're on the go it's not always practical to wear your big, music-weeb headphones. XD

So yeah, I think you'd be better off sticking to your average portable music player, and if you really want to indulge in HD audio, just play it off a hard drive.

Why would I pay over a $1000 for something that sounds marginally better than an iPhone or Andriod phone? :haha:

I'll stick to my iPhone

I don't think CD's are usually compressed that much. They have a pretty good amount of space, so there'd be no reason to compress.

Well I don't think the HD audio is better than CD's, it's probably about the same, though the issue is that people want portability and want the convenience of a portable player, but with better audio. Though there's other devices MUCH cheaper that play lossless files....

His quote said its better than CD's, which is why I brought that up. I kinda wonder why everyone hasn't just switched over to a lossless file format.

Derp, I haven't read it in awhile, but that means you're gonna have to rebuy (lol) all of your music just to use this device "correctly"

Derp, I haven't read it in awhile, but that means you're gonna have to rebuy (lol) all of your music just to use this device "correctly"

So you pay a fudgeton on money for the device can't play your current music and then you have to get your music in a new format since you can't convert to a higher format. This whole concept is just stupid.

No Sony. Bad Sony.

His quote said its better than CD's, which is why I brought that up. I kinda wonder why everyone hasn't just switched over to a lossless file format.

Because people don't know that there are formats that aren't MP3.

They also don't realise MP3 is shit.

(Also she/her pronouns ples.) :v

His quote said its better than CD's, which is why I brought that up. I kinda wonder why everyone hasn't just switched over to a lossless file format.

Because people don't know that there are formats that aren't MP3.

They also don't realise MP3 is shit.

MP3 is actually not shit at all. There's really not a lot that's better about lossless files. In fact, most songs are mixed to best played as .mp3 or .wav formats. In such a case, downloading the song in a lossless format doesn't actually mean much. You get a negligible amount of more headroom, but that's something the majority of folks (even audiophiles, if they were honest about it) won't even notice.

In rare cases, the artist will have a song mixed specifically for lossless format. In such a case, it makes to get the lossless format.

(Also she/her pronouns ples.) :v

Fanta's a girl, you plebs...