Design and fit
Speak to Bowers & Wilkins about the Px8 and it’s clear the firm has put equal thought into what owners can hear and what they can’t.
There’s active noise cancelling, of course, using microphones and clever software to create artificial silence, but smaller details include how the damping of the adjustable aluminium arms is quite firm, in a bid to cut down on vibrations. Similarly, Px8 are the first headphones from Bowers & Wilkins to employ carbon cones in the 40mm drive units – it’s a material that is more expensive than the paper-like bi-cellulose normally used, but which is lighter and stiffer, therefore reacting more quickly and holding its shape better, cutting down on distortion.
Details like those carbon cones are, Bowers says, too expensive to be fitted to any of its other headphones, and why the Px8 sits where it does, at £599. The company also explained to us how the cones are angled within their enclosures, ensuring they fire sound directly at the wearer’s ears, instead of at an angle that would cause sounds to arrive in the ear at slightly different times. This angling also allows for space within the drive unit, helping to create a fuller sound.
Other design details include how memory foam is used on the ear pads for comfort and sound isolation but not on the headband. This is so the latter always returns back to its original shape, instead of letting the band rest heavy on the top of the wearer’s head.
The result is a beautifully built pair of headphones that look and feel fantastic. They are every bit the luxury item their high price demands, and – let’s not beat around the bush here – they even smell luxurious.
Software and setup
Turn on the headphones with a slide of a switch on the right-hand earcup, pair them via Bluetooth with your phone, tablet or computer, and you’re good to go.
Or you can download the company’s own app. This is used to update the headphones’ software, switch between the three noise-cancelling options (on, off or transparency – there’s no sliding scale), and adjust other settings. Bass and treble can be altered, streaming quality can be lowered, to save on cellular data usage, and there’s the option to enable a wear sensor. This is supposed to pause music when the headphones are removed, but we found it to be overly sensitive, often stopping music when we turned our head, even on the lowest of its three sensitivity levels. Bowers & Wilkins needs to do some fine-tuning here to get the sensor working reliably.
The app can be used to stream music, but currently only Deezer, Tidal and Qobuz are supported. If you stream from anywhere else, such as Spotify or Apple Music, you’ll need to play your tracks from there instead.
B&W has opted not to fit any touch-sensitive controls to the Px8. Instead, there’s a play/pause/skip button, framed by a pair for adjusting the volume. On the other ear cup, a single button can be configured to cycle through the noise-cancelling options, or to summon your smartphone voice assistant. Some users will prefer touch controls, but we think tactile buttons make more sense when controlling something that cannot be seen while being used.
Performance and sound
Now to the main event, and how the Px8 sounds. Firstly, there is a confidence here – it’s a sound that isn’t afraid of serving up punchy bass when the track demands it, but that also manages to keep the mids and highs tightly in check. The result is a staggering amount of carefully balanced detail from every track you play, whatever the genre.
The level of clarity produced here is truly remarkable, as each instrument and vocal appears to have its own generous space in which to stand up and be heard inside your head. Distortion is practically zero, even at maximum volume, and it’s at higher levels when the Px8 really comes alive, with music lacking the slightest bit of punch when played quietly.
The vocals of Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved and Adele’s Easy On Me are polished with phenomenal clarity, while Caribou’s Never Come Back is packed with detail, each synthesised beat given its moment to shine across a broad soundstage, while every thump of bass is deployed with precision. It’s just so involving, so intimate, you’ll swear you can actually hear the piano pedal moving in Ludovico Einaudi’s Oltremare.
Support for 24-bit audio is welcome, and those who have a smartphone with Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive codec will be pleased to know they can listen to higher-resolution music from services such as Tidal and Amazon Music Unlimited. Plug in the headphones with the included USB-C cable, cue up some 24-bit tracks and enjoy.
But for everyone else – and if you’ve an iPhone, which doesn’t support aptX Adaptive – streaming music from any other service still sounds fantastic. Music is accurately reproduced, but there’s an element of fun here too – a sense that the Px8 is working hard to deliver a performance that is engaging and exciting. Spoken word is delivered with perfect clarity, making podcasts a joy to listen to.
Battery life is stated as 30 hours, which our testing has found to be accurate, and we applaud B&W for quoting battery life with active noise cancelling switched on, since you’d rarely use these headphones without it.
Speaking of noise cancelling, the Px8 is very good at cutting out background noise. It isn’t at the same level as the Apple AirPods Max but, by the same token, Bowers & Wilkins’ efforts at creating silence feel less artificial, with a lesser sense of pressure on your ears with the function enabled. The constant hum of an aeroplane cabin is mostly muted and the whooshing of a tube train is turned down, while sharp and sudden noises still cut through.
It feels like Bowers & Wilkins has opted for a well-judged quietness with its active noise cancelling, rather than striving to creat a total, shocking silence.
Transparency mode, where the outside world is piped in through microphones, is good enough to have a conversation without taking off the headphones, but again falls short of the AirPods Max’s ability to seem like you aren’t wearing them at all.
