Sony launches new Walkman 40 years after original release but it costs a bomb

Sony has been making high-end portable music players for years now. There's still a lucrative market for personal music players among audiophiles, and Sony is one of the big names. They cost what they do, because Sony dedicates serious time and attention to the playback circuitry in these units. They sound phenomenal, even with extremely sensitive (and expensive) IEMs.

This isn't even a return to the "Walkman" branding. Models like the A105 and ZX507, or the uber-expensive WM1A and WM1Z, have been out for years.

https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders...

This doesn't even appear to be any sort of anniversary edition. I can't find any explicit callback to the original Walkman in the marketing copy. There's no press release from Sony reminding us how far we've come from the original Walkman.

All that happened here is, Sony announced yet another product in a long line of similar products with consistent branding, price and featureset.