It's an odd article since all of Sony's music players have been called Walkman.

After Apple pulled out, Sony have been one of the only players in higher end portable music.

depends on who you are.

I am leaning in that direction. I am out writing right now and i have my phone and laptop, But I am streaming audio from my phone to a fiio btr3k. I am using lossless audio because the btr works as a amp for my high hifi headphones. The expereince, versus bluetooth standard stand or just inexpensive headphones is pretty drastic. But really this is about if you want this experience and the crowd of people like me are growing.

Streaming audio from spotify and other services sounds pretty bad on most devices, so in that case not even "magic headphones" can fix it, but for people like me that search out HQ sources a device like that would be a great solution.

It's one of those things that if you know you need it you are already looking for it. But its also a great gateway to new audiophiles looking for an accessible way into the scene.

YOU most likely dont need it, most people probably don't. But for the people out there that like the process of getting the most out of their music things like this are pretty cool.

I do especially considering how big phones are getting

The post is misleading. This has absolutely nothing to do with cassettes and the Walkman never went away having evolved to CDs, DAT, MiniDisc and their first DAP ("mp3" player) in 1999.

This is just the newest DAP model of Walkman targeting audiophiles. It runs Android and can download or stream over WiFi. Its specs are impressive if you're into that sort of thing. It's like the restaurant in The Menu only its audio instead of food, but probably attracts the same cast of characters. For almost everyone else, phones are the way to go.

I've suspected for awhile that the recent boom in retro tech is due to how sterile and 'soulless' modern devices are. Cassette tapes have poor sound quality, but the physical act of using them is awesome. They're tacticle, they make cool clicky-whirry sounds. A good tape deck has super satisfying buttons to push. You've got dials and sliders and fidgets that our monkey brains tell us we should play with.

Meanwhile, you get none of that from smartphones. They're some of the most dissatisfying devices to use imaginable. Very little physical or auditory feedback, if any, with 99% of all relevant information being conveyed through artificial onscreen visuals and nothing else. And the screen itself is just a flat featureless piece of glass which is entirely uninteresting to touch.

Hell, even the aesthetics. Every cell phone these days looks and feels almost exactly the same, while there are a ton of different variations in older consumer tech.

I think people are just becoming starved for novel physical stimulation, basically.

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People still like owning physical media but largely have no reason to. Cassettes are a way to physically own an album you love, financially support the artist moreso than through Spotify or whatever, while not requiring the same amount of space as vinyl. They're also a lot cheaper and easier to produce than vinyl records.

>I'm also not sure why I would want this when my phone streams everything already.

Dedicated devices always will be better quality. Both streaming services and smartphones by design are aiming to be “good enough.”

For people who are connoisseurs, the dedicated device’s improved quality will be noticeable and of value.

Why would anyone want to hear tape hiss from the 80’s is beyond me.

Listening stations being those setups where you can listen/compare different products? I'd agree on that. I never cared about music quality until I tried a friends setup that was really nice. Not an audiophile, but even just buying a nice pair of headphones/speakers and cheaper DAC or sound card can make a huge difference.

Am a bit of a headphone / portable audio buff. I’ve got an Astell & Kern AK380 DAP and it’s pretty awesome. For the sake of convenience when travelling however I got a Dragonfly Cobalt DAC.

It’s for use with my iPhone and my wired headphones. I also use Qobuz as a streaming service and the results are phenomenal.

So yep - the need for another device has almost gone away.

That said, what Sony are doing with their latest generation of Walkmans/men(?) is to be commended.