Sony has applied its prestigious Walkman brand to a new high-end media player, the Sony Walkman ZX2.
Following on from 2013’s ZX1, the Sony Walkman NW-ZX2 (to give it its full name) is a premium product designed to push 24-bit, 192KHz Hi-Res audio content.
That’s audio of a much higher quality than you might be used to from traditional streaming or download sources. In fact, it’s better than CD quality.
In addition, the ZX2 can handle a wide range of established formats, including MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, FLAC, and DSD.
For the regular ‘lossy’ formats, the ZX2 is said to be capable of applying DSEE HX processing to recreate the high-frequency musical information that tends to be lost in the compression process. This means that CD and MP3 sources are effectively upscaled to sound better than they are.
This is a proper audiophile’s tool, and it’s been built as such. The ZX2’s frame is made from a solid aluminium alloy, while its internal components feature gold-plated copper plate to help boost audio quality. Meanwhile, chunky physical playback buttons occupy the side of the device.
The Walkman ZX2 features a S-Master HX digital amplifier and 128GB of storage as standard, though the latter can be boosted further through a microSD card slot.
It also features Bluetooth and NFC for simple connections to wireless speakers and headphones. For physical a headphone connection there’s a chunky gold-plated 3.5mm port.
Read More: What is Hi-Res audio?
Interestingly, the device actually runs on Android 4.2. With a 4-inch 854 x 480 Triluminous display and Wi-Fi connectivity, it can actually be used to download and use apps from the Google Play Store.
Make no mistake though - the Sony Walkman ZX2 is all about the music. It’ll be on sale some time this spring for an eye-watering price of $1,199.99, which works out to around £788.
