Tempting Premium Headphones: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 Review

Anyone who's dabbled in premium audio gear should know the name Bowers & Wilkins. From speakers and home theater equipment to earbuds and other listening devices, the company has positioned itself as an elite brand. The latest product is its Px7 S2 wireless headphones—a subtle refinement over the Px7.

Although the nips and tucks around the Px7 S2 improve the overall experience, such as speeding up the charging time and tweaking the driver placements, there aren't any drastic changes in this latest version—unless you count removing the 3.5 mm headphone jack. (Bowers & Wilkins does include a USB-C to 3.5 mm connector in the box, for those concerned.) What these headphones do is help the company keep pace with the competition from Sony, Master & Dynamic, Bose and Apple.

Premium, consumer-level wireless headphones are about getting the right mix of features, style and sound. Here the Px7 S2 focuses heavily on the sound while including enough features to remain competitive. So the lingering question becomes, Does the design of these headphones speak to you?

TL;DR

Pros:

• Comfortable fit and available in stylish blue color
• Excellent sound quality and ANC performance

Cons:

• Disappointing ear detection performance
• Light on overall features for the price

Buy at Bowers & Wilkins.

Px7 S2 Features

For headphones that retail for $399, the Px7 S2 are a bit thin on features. Sure, there's a multipoint Bluetooth connection so you can pair multiple devices at once. And there's a sensor to pause audio when they are taken off. (More on this later.) But overall, the Px7 S2 seem to only shore up the basics.

The headphones feature 40 millimeter drivers for high-quality audio reproduction. Bowers & Wilkins advertises 30 hours of listening time. It's a respectable amount that's very much in line with competitors' offerings.

I'm inclined to call the style and design of these headphones a feature, too. There are three colors available at launch: black, gray and blue. The blue have gold accents, and I was very impressed by their look while holding them in my hands. Their size felt slimmer and less bulky than Sony's WH-1000MX5 and Master & Dynamic's MW75.

The look goes along with the feel. The soft memory foam on the earcups and headband is comfortable. The headphones felt secure on my head and weren't heavy in any way. They did put some pressure around my temples the first couple of times I wore them. They never hurt my head, however, and after using them for longer periods of time, I did get used to their feel relatively quickly.

Physical buttons grace both earcups, which is nice. These buttons felt close together and similar in size, so I had to sense them blindly at the start. I learned their location after a few days, so they shouldn't be a problem over the long term—only a minor challenge out of the gate.

All-Around Performance

Even though I would have liked to see more premium features on the Px7 S2, I do think they sounded completely capable in the area of audio quality. Music was vibrant and lively. Kick drums and electronic beats were punchy and well-defined. Vocals felt clear and distinguishable. Across a wide spectrum of music genres, I never noticed any distractions in reproduction.

You can tweak a couple of EQ settings within the Bowers & Wilkins Music mobile app, but I never felt the need. I was sufficiently engulfed in rich tones from the Weeknd, Harry Styles, James Taylor, Billy Joel and many more. One song in particular that stood out to me while listening on these headphones was Lapsley's "32 Floors."

The track begins with thick, low-end keys that highlight the depth that's possible here. The verse is sprinkled with snaps to keep the momentum moving toward a quick-paced, captivating chorus. The entire time, the singer's soothing voice floats among the music with a subtle urgency. The song showed off a lot of the audio capabilities of the headphones.

I took the Px7 S2 to a coffee shop straddling a busy road to test their active noise cancellation. The headphones blocked most of the street noise and mostly created a bubble of solitude. The different environmental settings include active noise cancellation (ANC), pass-through and off. The single button on the left earcup can toggle between the selections.

ANC strength was strong enough to keep traffic sounds at bay, among other uses, but Sony's WH-1000XM5 are still the ones to beat. The pass-through mode on the Px7 S2 felt useful while out of the house. I could hear ambient sounds while they were on my head. There were some times I used pass-through at home, however, that didn't seem to allow the clarity of people talking I had been expecting.

Unfortunately, the ear detection performance was infuriating. It will pause audio automatically when you take the headphones off. The frustrating part came when more than a few times, music would randomly pause while I was listening. Eventually, it became clear the issue was tied to this setting.

There are three selectable levels (low, normal and high) of ear detection under the wear sensor section in the mobile app. It's not exactly clear what the different selections refer to, but I think it's the sensitivity of the sensor.

The app says to use the low settings if the headphones are pausing on their own while on your head. That was the first red flag that this was a troubled feature. The second flag, in hindsight, was its turning off by default. I activated it and used ear detection for a little over a day before I needed to turn it off. Drinking, chewing and moving my head in certain ways all paused audio at unexpected times in the first 24 hours. I put up with at least two dozen false positives (across the different sensitivity levels) before I gave up.

I think earbuds or headphones automatically pausing their audio when you remove them is a core feature—especially helpful when you're around other people in public or an office. It's disappointing that the feature worked so poorly in my experience.

In stark contrast to ear detection, using the Px7 S2 for calls was a success. I could hear people well and others reported being able to hear me fine, too—a low but important bar to clear. When I recorded a message through the iOS Voice Memos app, the audio was low and nearly inaudible. But recording myself talking on video and a different recording app sounded excellent. Minus the weird issue between the headphones and Apple's Voice Memos, these headphones have been more than adequate for meetings and other communications.

Should You Buy Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2?

The Px7 S2 rank high on my list of attractive headphones—they're eye-catching. That's far from enough to justify their cost, but I found their excellent audio quality a good compliment to their classic design. I had no problem with comfort and wearing these for hours at a time. I was also impressed, but not blown away, by their solid ANC performance. There's a lot to like here from Bowers & Wilkins.

Of course, it's disappointing that the wear sensor for head detection was so unreliable. If that particular feature and a near $400 price isn't a deal breaker for your needs, then these headphones should definitely be close to the top of your consideration list.

Buy at Bowers & Wilkins for $399.

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