Sony Thinks You’re Dumb Enough To Pay $1145 For A Metal Gear Walkman

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
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Are you a Big Boss fan with disposable income? Well, this high-quality DAP is perfect for you. While I’m not disputing the sound quality of the device, I think you could save a lot of money by just getting a DAC and a nice pair of headphones for your smartphone or tablet.

The Wallkman ZX series NW-ZX2 (pictured above) has 128 GB of storage includes a booklet, an Outer Heaven leather case, ten high resolution audio files (including four vocal tracks – Quiet’s Theme, Heavens Divide, Sins of the Father, and Snake Eater), the “!” sound effect, and four wallpapers for 140,000 yen.
 
people still buy single purpose devices?

funny thing is it was the lack of decent mp3 players on the market that drove me to buy a smart phone in the first place...won't be looking back.
 
They also have
a Walkman A series for 28,000 yen
a xperia z5 and z and J1 all themed and preloaded with Mgs

the pictured player is just the most expensive.
 
Sony - Always with the great ideas, too idiotic to market them properly, and typically charging prices for products that are so off-the-charts bonzo insane that even Apple stands up and takes note with a laughing smirk with a "Yeah right, people aren't that stupid..." comment.

Mini-Discs could have replaced the floppy disk over 20 years ago but Sony was just too stupid to jump on it when they had the chance and Iomega stepped in with the infamous Zip disk and stole all that potential income. The Zip disk was 100MB formatted, the Mini-Disc could hold 140MB formatted and Sony could have started cranking out drives for personal computers like mad but, no, they were stupid and blew it. I won't even get started on the abysmal SonicStage software they created for MDs either.

So sad to see what they keep doing, they are literally the company that just can't seem to not shoot itself in the foot. :(

Anything over 16-bit 48 kHz for playback is a waste anyway (or a placebo, depending on yoru POV) - watch the video at the top of the page if you're interested as Monty - co-creator of several lossy audio formats such as Ogg Vorbis and Opus and is a literal genius with respect to audio quality beyond reproach - schools the masses (hopefully) on why 16-bit 48 kHz is more than enough for anyone.

(tip: if you choose to watch the video make sure to adjust your volume or that of the video itself BEFORE you hit the Play button as it can blast out pretty loudly...)
 
xorbe said:
Yeah I use a cheap light-weight mp3 player for running. If (when) something happens to it, only $10-20 to replace.
Click to expand...

This. I use them when I'm in the car, so I can leave it in there and not worry about it getting stolen or anything. If it does, oh well, not that expensive.
 
THRESHIN said:
people still buy single purpose devices?
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

Although I've never tried the fancier iPhones or Galaxy handsets, I have yet to use a phone for music that provides a good clean output. I think phones are just noisy by nature, but maybe it has improved over the years. Plus I don't like to burn through battery on my phone when I can get 20-30 hours out of my ipod nano.

As for this Walkman, I actually think limited edition stuff like this is cool as hell. No way I can afford this on my current budget, but props to anyone who wants to add this to their MGS collection.
 
The sad reality is they are right..people ARE dumb enough to blow money like that. The real question is does Sony keep the numbers limited to a realistic amount they can actually sell or if they lose all their profit making too many?

This thread in just a few posts proves that people will spend crazy amounts of money on literally nothing. I know someone personally who has spent in excess of $30,000 to buy virtual shit in video games. People with lots of disposable income are out there..

Me personally? Not even if I won the lottery. To me it isn't about the money so much as principle. I find the very concept insulting to my intelligence and outright refuse to waste large amounts of money on bullshit. It is probably that same thing that is why I find micro transactions and in game RMT shops so damn offensive I will outright no play a game over it, with very few exceptions.
 
haz_mat said:
Absolutely.

Although I've never tried the fancier iPhones or Galaxy handsets, I have yet to use a phone for music that provides a good clean output. I think phones are just noisy by nature, but maybe it has improved over the years. Plus I don't like to burn through battery on my phone when I can get 20-30 hours out of my ipod nano.

As for this Walkman, I actually think limited edition stuff like this is cool as hell. No way I can afford this on my current budget, but props to anyone who wants to add this to their MGS collection.
Click to expand...

You may want to give the LG2 a glance..While I am not sure if it is carried over in the newer G3/G4, I noticed that my LG2 connected to my car audio setup seemed to provide a better result then previous phones and mp3 players I had tried..I was curious as to why and when I did some research it seems LG offered 24/192Hz playback (and while the article above does a great job proving while this isn't needed) I think the reason it sounds better is that LG had to bypass the entire Android audio stack in order to offer 24/192Hz playback..
 
I was trying to figure out how come it was so expensive. Sony does think we're stupid. But there's always going to be fanboys that are going to buy it anyway. I know a few of them and I know some that would really buy it.
 
I can assure you there are at least 100 people on the Head-Fi forum that will buy this and believe Sony's utter bullshit with ease.

Audiophiles are some of the most gullible consumers in the marketing business. They literally believe everything they are told.
 
Fun thing: Losses in Sony's mobile division ate up all the profits from the Playstation division. They need to cut their losses and bad decisionmakers and designers over at mobile.
 
THRESHIN said:
people still buy single purpose devices?

funny thing is it was the lack of decent mp3 players on the market that drove me to buy a smart phone in the first place...won't be looking back.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I'm not going to drop what sony thinks I should on it, but I have been seriously considering getting a dedicated high quality DAP. I could either build another media PC, except it would do almost nothing but play audio, or I could drop a few hundred on something that will handle high resolution audio, have a goo parametric EQ, be able to be used as a DAC and if I'm willing to spend a bit more, have a decent built in headphone amp.

Increasingly I'm finding that there's a limitation to what the phones and tablets are doing in terms of the best version of being a DAP, and a lot of the rough spots go away simply by not being a general purpose device. Then there's the issue that I like to fiddle around on my phone when relaxing. Using them while playing audio often gets some drop outs and odd behaviors, and usually requires the listening be headphone based or bluetooth. Bluetooth is marginal compared to a physical connection for quality.

In my car none of the above is an issue. I deal with the shortcomings, and device behavior is a pretty good fit for the needs. In my realxing space though, not so much. Nobody would blink an eye at me buying a $300 end table to put next to my chair, but a $300 appliance for playing music that does little else? Blasphemy!
 
Godmachine said:
I can assure you there are at least 100 people on the Head-Fi forum that will buy this and believe Sony's utter bullshit with ease.

Audiophiles are some of the most gullible consumers in the marketing business. They literally believe everything they are told.
Click to expand...

and yet, audiophile are probably the most technical hobbyists out there. I know audiophiles that know more about DSP and bit resolutions affects than many of the DSP engineers ive meant (granted they werent in the industry for sound quality). They also do a huge amount of experimentation and spend a ton of money on equipment to analyze the different properties of their equipment and match it with others. The fact that most people on this board cant even differentiate an mp3 from lossless when using 320kb files in blind test i can identify the mp3 version 90% of the time, and also are recommending that people use phones which have absolutely terrible chips and are extremely noise due to very little isolation in their layouts says enough to say very few people here should even have an opinion on the matter
 
I still buy CDs. After listening to CDs for the past 25 years, 16 bit mp3s sound like crap through the car stereo.
 
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