Sony’s Signature Series audio gear has landed in Malaysia
Sony’s ultra premium Signature Series headphones that debuted at IFA 2016 have finally made it to Malaysia. Befitting the name, the Signature Series is all class with a classy black finish across the line-up which consists of a pair of plush closed-back noise cancelling headphones, a desktop amplifier and a Walkman that acts as the odd man out of the whole ensemble as it’s actually gold plated for even more ostentatiousness.
The headphones, officially dubbed the MDR-Z1R, are decadently padded for hours and hours of comfy wear and are equipped to kick out a 120kHz Hi-Res audio playback via the 70mm HD driver units. The ear pads are hewn of original leather to ensure exceptional comfort while the headbands are hewn from beta titanium for durability and lightness. And yes, it’s wired so that particular new phone from Cupertino won’t work with it straight off the bat.
The Signature Series NW-WM1Z Walkman is as much a statement of 80’s bling as it is a Hi-Res audio playing masterpiece. The hardware is over-engineered for aural perfection, with the whole affair weighing a whopping 455g while the external casing is hewn from oxygen-free copper that is then gold plated to make it quite a statement piece. The rest of the hardware is equally opulent with the headphone jack engineered using Kimber Kable for better audio quality and a new FT CAP built into the amp offers even more output power than the older NW-ZX2. The Walkman is able to play almost every music format on the planet, can pair up to headphones via Bluetooth 4.2 and has enough juice to play back close to 11 hours worth of DSD files. The Walkman also has 256GB of onboard storage which is plenty. A variant dubbed the NW-WM1A comes with a sleek aluminium finish and has 128GB of storage though it is almost half the price.
The TA-ZH1ES headphone amplifiers are able to deliver up to DSD 22.4Mhz or PCM 768KHz at 32bit quality audio via a D.A hybrid amplifier circuit and Sony’s S-Master HX tech. Even the chassis itself has been designed to minimise unnecessary vibrations when playing audio for superior sound quality though it weighs a hefty 4.4kg.
The price of such opulent audio quality is substantial. The MDR-Z1R headphones retail for RM7,099 while the NW-WM1Z Walkman retails for RM9999 and the TA-ZH1ES amps retail for RM8,999. The NW-WM1A Walkman retails for RM4,999. This means that if you’re up to scoring everything in the Signature Series line-up, you’ll need to fork out a cool RM26,097. The Signature Series will be available in Malaysia by the time you read this at selected retailers nationwide. For more details swing by Sony Malaysia’s official website here.
