Sony has introduced three Walkman digital media players today, with preorders open and U.S. prices ranging from $1,899.99 for the NW-ZX900 to $5,899 for the NW-WM1ZM3. Between them sits the NW-WM1AM3 at $2,999.99, giving buyers three price points for players that support Sony's DSD Remastering Engine across downloaded music and Wi-Fi streaming.
Buyers can preorder every model through Crutchfield, Sony and B&H, while Amazon also offers the NW-ZX900 and NW-WM1AM3. Canadian suggested prices are $2,659.99 for the NW-ZX900, $4,199.99 for the NW-WM1AM3 and $8,259.99 for the NW-WM1ZM3. Sony says more authorized dealers will offer the players later, but has not supplied a shipping date.
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The least expensive model, the NW-ZX900, also has the longest quoted battery endurance: up to 40 hours playing MP3 files at 128kbps, compared with up to 35 hours for either WM1 model. Those ratings require Sony's own playback app and a balanced connection. Sony also quotes up to 35 hours using streaming service apps on the NW-ZX900 and up to 31 hours on the other two, with those figures measured offline through a balanced connection.
The NW-WM1ZM3 and NW-WM1AM3 have larger, 5.5-inch displays, while the NW-ZX900 uses a 5-inch screen. Users can customize the Walkman® Home Screen, and album artwork appears larger in the updated interface. Across all three players, the DSD Remastering Engine converts PCM music into an 11.2MHz DSD stream, with Sony extending the processing to music streamed over Wi-Fi.
The flagship NW-WM1ZM3 uses gold-plated oxygen-free copper for its main chassis, with copper purity rated at 99.99%, and an oxygen-free copper rear chassis. The other two models pair aluminium-alloy main chassis with gold-plated oxygen-free copper rear sections. In the NW-WM1ZM3 and NW-WM1AM3, Sony has replaced one large solid high-polymer capacitor with two, a change it says improves power stability and reduces interference.
Sony's S-Master™ HX amplifier now incorporates a look-ahead noise shaper, which the company says anticipates quantization noise to improve reproduction of rapid musical transients. The NW-ZX900 also receives an ultra-low noise LDO regulator and the same crystal oscillators used in the more expensive models.
