Sony revives the Walkman with a $5,899 gold-plated flagship

Sony has revived the Walkman with three digital music players priced from $1,899 to $5,899, the flagship built around a gold-plated oxygen-free copper chassis. No European price or release date has been given, and the EU’s rule on user-replaceable batteries applies from 18 February 2027.

Sony has brought back the Walkman with a flagship costing $5,899. It is built around gold-plated copper and weighs 670g, against 490g for the model it replaces. Sony has not said when it ships, or whether Europe will get one.

Bloomberg reported the launch on Thursday. Three players are on pre-order, from $1,899 to $5,899, the first new hardware in several years to carry the name. The NW-WM1ZM3 uses an oxygen-free copper chassis of 99.99% purity, gold-plated, with screws given their own gold-plated treatment.

Sony says those screws provide “ a stable ground connection that delivers powerful bass, an expansive soundstage, and smooth, extended high frequencies “. The $2,999 NW-WM1AM3 and the $1,899 NW-ZX900 pair an aluminium chassis with a gold-plated copper back. All three run Android.

The cheapest model jumps to Android 16 from the Android 12 on its predecessor, and to a 1080p screen from 720p. Rivals undercut every tier. Astell and Kern’s SP4000 sells for $4,290 and Cayin’s N8iii for $3,999, while the iBasso DX340 and FiiO M27 both come in below the cheapest Sony at $1,799.

For compressed files, Sony says the players use AI to identify the genre and lift the high frequencies. It also quotes battery life on 128kbps MP3, a format nobody spending $5,899 would play. TNW once failed a blind test between a 320kbps stream and a lossless file on $400 headphones.

A 2013 survey cited in that piece put 151 listeners through the same comparison. Fifty-two per cent preferred the lossy files. Europe is the part Sony has not addressed.

EU battery rules require portable batteries in electronic devices to be removable and replaceable by the owner from 18 February 2027. Spare batteries must stay available for five years after the last unit is sold, and a compatible battery from another brand has to work. Sealed players of this kind sit inside that definition.

The Dutch company Fairphone sells a $650 phone with twelve user-replaceable parts and a battery the owner can take out. Sony’s flagship is sealed. Sony says the packaging for all three uses no plastic.

A footnote excludes coatings and adhesives, and adds that this varies by region. The EU banned unsubstantiated generic environmental claims on 27 September, eighteen days before this launch. Sony has still not said when Europe can buy one.

It built the same thing in 2016, when the NW-WM1Z cost $3,680 .