Sony NW-WM1ZM2 Walkman Digital Music Player

About The Sony NW-WM1ZM2 Walkman

Part of the Signature Series, the NW-WM1ZM2 sets a new benchmark in pure sound quality and listening sophistication. Crafted with the finest materials and meticulous attention to detail, and offering the ease of downloading and streaming music, this is audio at its most indulgent. 

An S-Master HX digital amplifier, strong power supply, and high-quality internal components work to keep audio clean, nuanced, and dynamic for up to 40 hours on a full charge. It supports a variety of high-end sound processing options, such as Hi-Res Audio, 11.2 MHz native DSD, Edge-AI-enhanced DSEE Ultimate, and more. Read on to see what makes the Sony NW-WM1ZM2 Walkman special.

Every Note As The Artist Intended: Take your digital music collection to another level with High-Resolution Audio. By capturing and reproducing digital audio at a higher rate than CD (24-bit/96kHz and beyond), High-Resolution Audio allows you to get closer to the original studio recording.

11.2 MHz DSD Native / PCM 384kHz: Supreme quality with 11.2MHz DSD native using balanced headphones and PCM 384KHz/32-bit support.

Hi-Res Audio Wireless: Enjoy High-Resolution Audio quality without wires thanks to LDAC, Sony's premium wireless codec. With 3x the bitrate of standard Bluetooth® technology, you can enjoy a superior listening experience for all your music.

MQA™: The Walkman includes MQA technology, which enables you to play back MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) audio files.

Familiar Features: Key design elements include the twin headphone jacks on the top and the intuitive side key, both inherited from its predecessor.

Distinctive Rear Section: The OFC frame with machine carved aluminium rear contributes to the high-quality sound and creates a premium feel. In addition, the distinctive rear section – thicker and more pronounced than its predecessor – reflects the larger, superior quality audio parts that are housed within.

Echoes Of Analogue: Every element of the WM1ZM2 is dedicated to the pure joy of music listening, right down to the volume user interface, which recalls classic analogue design.

Wi-Fi Lets You Stream And Download Even More Music: Supported by Android™ and compatible with Wi-Fi, the WM1ZM2 gives you even more freedom to enjoy music. Listen to your favourite streaming and music apps on your Walkman or connect to a PC to download tracks and playlists from your music collection.

Large 5.0" Display: Smooth and responsive, the large 5.0" (127mm) touchscreen display has been enlarged from its predecessor's 4.0" (102mm) display and upgraded to HD.

Long Battery Life: Immerse yourself in your music with up to 40 hours of non-stop 96kHz FLAC High-Resolution Audio playback.

Walkman® Home Screen: With the Walkman® Home Screen, you can customise the home display to suit your needs.

USB Type-C Port: A USB Type-C port, compatible with USB 3.2 Gen1, offers fast music file transfer and easy connectivity with a range of devices.

Expandable Storage: With 256GB integrated memory and an SD card slot, the WM1ZM2 lets you take even the biggest music collections on the go.

360 Reality Audio, So Immersive, So Real: Immerse yourself in sound all around you. As real as if you are there at a live concert or with the artist recording in a studio. With 360 Reality Audio, music has never been so immersive and so real. The WM1ZM2 lets you enjoy 360 Reality Audio.

Balanced Connection: The Walkman® features a balanced single plug, designed for the 4.4mm balanced connection cable. This separates left and right sound signals, while minimising signal transmission loss and resulting sound deterioration. There is also a standard 3.5mm output for normal headphones.

Technically Speaking

Purer Materials For A Purer Sound: Despite oxygen-free copper (OFC) being notoriously difficult to machine process, the WM1ZM2 features a gold-plated OFC chassis – just like its predecessor. This time though, OFC purity has been upgraded to 99.99% (four nines), offering even greater benefits in terms of audio quality and high rigidity. Bass notes are clear and powerful, the atmosphere is more expansive, and mid to high range sounds linger beautifully.

Faithful Sound Reproduction: S-Master™ HX digital amp technology, independently developed for Walkman®, is compatible with the Native DSD format, and supports balanced and high power output. It reduces distortion and noise across a wide range of frequencies, for rich and full-bodied sound, further enhanced by new high quality sound lead-free solder.

An Even Stronger Power Supply: Taking inspiration from the DMP-Z1, Sony's flagship digital music player, the WM1ZM2 features an even stronger power supply than its predecessor, both in the analogue block and the digital block.

Large Solid High Polymer Capacitor: Adopted as battery assist for the amplifier block, the newly developed large solid high polymer capacitor offers large capacitance and low resistance. Able to instantaneously supply large amounts of power, it can accurately output signals by preventing sudden falls in voltage. This contributes to clear, powerful and accurate bass sound, as well as clear vocals.

FT CAP3 (High Polymer Capacitor): Custom-made for Sony and tuned by Sony engineers, FT CAP3 is adopted for all bypass capacitors in the audio block power supply. Drawing on know-how cultivated in high-end home audio development, it has helped to improve sound expression and create a smoother sound, with a wider sound space, more transparency, and tighter bass.

OFC Milled Block: An OFC milled block covers the digital block, helping both to strengthen digital ground and improve noise shielding from digital block elements such as the application processor and memory devices. The result is a clearer sound that appears to rise up from silence.

High Polymer Capacitors: The high polymer capacitors within the WM1ZM2 are used to strengthen the power supply of the amp block for unbalanced output, enhancing low-range reproduction performance for a more expansive listening experience.

Film Capacitors: High quality film capacitors deliver voltage with a linear response across frequencies, resulting in reduced distortion and noise.

Winding Inductors: Replacing the conventional laminated capacitor, winding inductors in the digital block power supply contribute to a pure sound.

Kimber Kable®: The wiring material from the amp base to the balanced headphone jack has been upgraded to thick Kimber Kable®, just like on the flagship DMP-Z1 music player. This helps to shut out external noise, transmit high quality audio signals, and achieve powerful and smooth sound quality.

Fine Sound Register: The surface mounted Fine Sound Register ensures even, effective distribution of power to the circuit components, for consistent sound quality.

Crystal Oscillators: Two compact low-phase-noise crystal oscillators ensure precision clock stability at sampling rate multiples of 44.1kHz and 48kHz. The crystal electrode piece is formed with gold vapour deposition for enhanced electric characteristics and improved instrumental separation. This helps remove a veil and reduce noise to realise clear, open sound reproduction.

Newly Developed Reflow Solder Containing Gold: This is the first time Sony has used reflow solder containing gold, and it features extensively across the circuit board surface – so the overall effect is significant, including improved sound localisation and a wider sound space.

High Quality Solder Containing Gold: The exceptional conductivity of gold ensures absolute minimum signal loss. For clearer sound and vocals, a premium, audio-grade lead-free solder with a small amount of gold connects the circuit of the WM1ZM2 to the battery.

Low Dielectric Circuit Board: The printed circuit board uses low dielectric material to realise accurate signal transmission, while the via holes are filled with copper to further reduce impedance. The result is a wide sound space with clear, bright sound.

Optimised Circuit Board Layout: By dividing the Audio block and the Power/Digital block, the circuit board layout has been optimised to ensure sound quality is unaffected by digital interference.

DSD Remastering Engine: PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio is resampled into an 11.2MHz DSD (Direct Stream Digital) ultra-high-frequency 1-bit audio stream. The single-bit stream delivered to the DAC has a character far closer to that of analogue, giving you even more ways to enjoy your music.

DSEE Ultimate: Using Edge-AI (Artificial Intelligence), DSEE Ultimate™ (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) upscales compressed digital music files in real time. And the evolving algorithm now delivers even greater benefits for CD-quality (16 bit 44.1/48kHz) lossless codec audio. Restoring acoustic subtleties and dynamic range, it provides a richer, more complete listening experience.

Vinyl Processor: Give the warmth and character of vinyl back to your digital tracks. Enjoy subtle reproduction of the low-frequency resonance, tone-arm resistance and surface noise to deliver an authentic listening experience.

DC Phase Linearizer: Sony's DC Phase Linearizer works to effectively replicate a wide variety of sonic signatures. It applies digital-signal processing to match the phase characteristics of various types of analogue amplifiers to deliver a purer, more analogue-like sound. Choose from six phase character settings.

Sustainability In Mind: Sony products are not only designed to be stylish but also with the environment in mind. No plastic is used in the packaging material for the WM1ZM2, reflecting Sony's commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our products and practices.

About Sony

In 1946, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, The predecessor of Sony Group Corporation) started as a small company with capital of just 190,000 yen and approximately 20 employees. Founder Masaru Ibuka said the purpose of setting up the company was to establish an ideal factory that stresses a spirit of freedom and open mindedness that will, through technology, contribute to Japanese culture. Symbolizing Sony's spirit of challenge to do what has never been done before, the company has continued to release countless "Japan's first" and "world's first" products.

Sony has released many ground-breaking and significant products throughout its history which include Japan's first transistor radio in 1955 followed 2 years later by the first pocket sized portable transistor radio. The Cassette Walkman in 1979, the world's first direct-view portable transistor TV in 1960, followed by the first Trinitron TV in 1968. The first Beta VCR in 1975, Japan's first audio reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1950 and Sony's first cassette tape recorder in 1966. World's first compact disc player in 1982, the first Super Audio CD (SACD) player in 1999. First stereo headphones in 1964, the first in-ear headphones in 1982 and the world's first digital noise cancelling headphones in 2008. Sony's original PlayStation launched in Japan in 1994 and the latest PlayStation 5 was released worldwide in late 2020.

This very short list merely scratches the surface of what Sony has achieved over the last 75 years. This multi-national corporation continues to innovate and produce cutting edge products in almost every audio visual category for you to enjoy in your home.

Sony NW-WM1Z Review

"The sonic goal of the NW-WM1Z was quite simple: To compete sonically with the best non-portable, room-based digital playback systems currently available. In my opinion it succeeds at this goal, with a few caveats. Unlike some portable players that are unable to create the same big soundstage and sense of unlimited bass capabilities as desktop or room-based components, the NW-WM1Z rivals any AC-tethered headphone playback systems I've encountered when it comes to producing a full-sized image with subtle and fully realized sonic information.

The terms "smooth" and "suave" featured prominently in my listening notes on the NW-WM1Z. Regardless of the source material's format, this player always sounded in complete control. I attribute this overall sense of natural ease to the NW-WM1Z noise levels, which are lower than those of most portable players (and many room-anchored components). On material that I know well I noticed the lack of anything that could be labeled as "distracting base-level noise." It was not only easy to listen deep into the mix, but there was an overall sense of musicality and lack of artificiality or hi-fi-ish edge. How "natural" does the NW-WM1Z sound? I preferred the overall sound of the NW-WM1Z playing back my own recordings to those same recordings played back directly from the Korg MR-1000 they were originally made on. Through the Sony NW-WM1Z these recordings sounded less mechanical, more fluid, and more natural, similar to the original microphone feed.

With its 10-band EQ you can alter the NW-WM1Z's sonic character rather drastically, if you wish. Most of my serious listening was done with the "direct" mode engaged, which bypasses all sound-shaping. I also listened to all the various DC phase linearizer settings and found that their main function was to change low bass character, and the "best" setting was directly related to each individual track rather than to a universal ideal. Also, your choice of headphones will have a profound effect on the amount of change the DC phase linearizer setting will make. Unless your cans can produce deep bass you may not hear much difference between settings on and settings off.

My favorite pairing with the NW-WM1Z was the MDR-Z1R headphone using the balanced connection. This combination provided a silent background, a huge but exceedingly specific image and soundstage, super-deep bass response, a musical yet detailed midrange, more than enough gain for even quiet source material, and an effortlessness to the dynamics that gave everything an easy-to-listen-into character. In-ears with anywhere between 90 and 100dB sensitivity interfaced with the NW-WM1Z's single-ended output perfectly with no hiss and plenty of gain." Steven Stone, The Absolute Sound Magazine

Our Take On The Sony NW-WM1ZM2 Walkman

If pure audio indulgence is where you're at we feel certain that you will be enchanted by the Signature Series NW-WM1ZM2 Walkman. Sony have pulled out all the stops, left no high-tech stone unturned and has produced what might be the finest sounding portable digital music player on the planet. We love it that Sony still call this a Walkman but really, this is more like high end jewellery which happens to play music, sublimely. Any comparison to a cassette Walkman of yore is tenuous at best. This is not some grab and go commodity. This is a product to be treasured, pampered even. Having said that the NW-WM1ZM2 is small enough and, er, light enough(?) to be used on the move, as long as it's not a marathon you're attempting. The half kilo weight would surely slow you down. But if it's listening to music while you're out and about you desire, this is the ultra-bling way to do it and when you do catch up for coffee with friends it will look great sitting sublimely on the table, declaring just how upmarket your musical tech tastes really are. This is not a music player to be shoved in a pocket, it is a pure piece of audio indulgence that should be celebrated for all to see. Enjoy.

Main Feature & Specifications

• Design: Portable Digital Music Player
• Audio
  • External DAC Functionality
    • PCM: 384 kHz / 32-Bit
    • DSD256: 11.2 MHz / 1-Bit
  • Audio Resolution
    • DSD256: 11.2 MHz / 1-Bit
  • Frequency Response: 20 Hz to 40 kHz (Balanced/Unbalanced Headphone Out)
  • Volume Control: Digital (120 Steps)
  • Audio Power Output
    • 120 mW at 16 Ohms (Unbalanced Headphone Out)
    • 500 mW at 16 Ohms (Balanced Headphone Out)
  • Custom Equalizer: Yes
• Performance
  • Operating System: Android 11
  • Internal Storage: 256 GB (Please Note: A portion of the memory is used for data management functions. Actual available memory is approx. 215GB)
  • Media/Memory Card Slot: Single Slot - microSD/microSDHC/microSDXC
  • Display: 5" (127mm) HD LCD Touch Screen (1280 x 720 Pixels)
  • Operation Method: Physical Buttons, Touchscreen
• Media Support
  • Audio Formats Supported: MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV, AAC, HE-AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, DSD, APE & MQA
• Connectivity
  • Wireless
    • Bluetooth 5.0
    • Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac)
  • Bluetooth Codecs: AAC, LDAC
  • Connections
    • 1 x 3.5 mm Headphone Output
    • 1 x 4.4 mm Balanced Headphone Output
    • 1 x USB Type-C USB Input
• Power
  • Battery: Built-in Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery providing up to 40 Hours per Charge for Audio Playback
  • Charging Time For Full Charge: 4.5 Hours
• General
  • Finish: Gold Plated
  • Dimensions (WxHxD): 80.5 x 142.5 x 21 mm
  • Weight : 490 g
• Manufacturer's Warranty: 1 Year

Note: Specifications Subject To Change Without Notice. E&OE.