Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 Wireless  Headphones Review

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 have an updated look from their predecessor, the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Wireless. They have a knit fabric exterior with shiny metallic accents and the manufacturer's name written vertically on each ear cup. The headphones come in three color variants: 'Black', 'Grey', 'and 'Blue'.

These headphones are comfortable. Although the ear cups fit tightly around your ears, they're spacious, and the padding feels nice against the skin. Although they have a high clamping force, they don't feel very tight on the head. However, you may have a different experience if you have a large head. That said, the headband can create two pressure points around the side of your head. You can feel this when wearing them over long periods, particularly if you have a small head.

These headphones have great physical controls. The buttons are clicky and easy to tell apart. There are chimps for each of the Environment Control buttons too. However, there isn't any volume feedback, whether you're adjusting the volume or when you've reached the min/max volume.

On the left ear cup:

• Quick action button
  • Single press: By default, this is set to environmental controls and cycles between ANC, transparency mode, which allows you to stay aware of your surroundings without taking off your headphones, and ANC off. You can also replace this control with voice assistant via the companion app.

On the right ear cup:

• Power switch
  • Single press: Turns the headphones on and off.
  • Press and hold: Activates Bluetooth pairing mode.
• Volume controls
  • Single press the '+' button: Raises the volume.
  • Single press the '-' button: Lowers the volume.
• Multi-function button
  • Single press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
  • Double press: Skips to the next track. Also lets you switch between calls.
  • Triple press: Skips to the previous track. Also mutes and unmutes the mic during a call.
  • Press and hold: Declines a call. If you're in a call, it merges two calls.

These headphones aren't the most portable. The ear cups can swivel to lay flat, but they won't fold into a more compact shape. On the upside, their carrying case helps protect them when you're on the go.

These headphones come with a great carrying case. It feels sturdy and has a zipper that ensures the case can fully close. The headphones also fit nicely inside it. The inside of the case is made from felt, and there's a compartment to store the cables when not in use. It feels a bit like nice cardboard, and the fuzzy lining can be hard to keep clean.

The build quality of these headphones is excellent. They're mostly made of plastic with leatherette memory foam padding. Unlike the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Wireless, their ear cups have knit fabric detailing instead of brushed metal. Their hinges are thinner than the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Wireless, their yokes are shorter and sit closer to the earcup. Their headband feels more sturdy too. They have more square-shaped ear cups than their predecessor, which some users may prefer. Overall, they feel well-built and premium.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 are stable over-ear headphones and are an improvement over their predecessor. They'll easily stay on your head while working at your desk or going to and from the office, thanks to their snug fit. They can move around a bit more if you want to wear them during a workout, though. If you have a smaller head, the headband can slide forward over time.

• Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 headphones
• USB-C to 1/8" audio cable
• USB-C to USB-C charging/audio cable
• Carrying case
• Manuals

These headphones have a bass-heavy sound that delivers extra thump, punch, and boom to audio. While vocals and instruments are bright and sparkly, the overall mix still sounds a bit muddy due to all the extra bass and boosted low-mids. Their tuning works for energetic hip-hop, dance, and pop music. The companion app offers a two-band graphic EQ to adjust the bass and treble.

They sound virtually the same regardless of whether you use them over Bluetooth, analog, or USB-C connection. If you disable ANC, the low-end is slightly reduced, but they're still very bassy.

The frequency response consistency is alright. They're prone to more inconsistencies in treble delivery due to fit and positioning than bass delivery, but you may still notice a drop in bass if you have thick hair or wear glasses. It's important to take the time to ensure a good fit each time you use them to ensure a consistent sound.

The bass profile's target compliance is okay. The response is overemphasized across the range, resulting in extra thump, rumble, and boom in mixes. You may still like this extra bass if you enjoy genres like EDM and hip-hop. However, in excess, the bass can muddy the rest of your mix.

The mid-range's target compliance is excellent. There's some overemphasis coming from the bass range into the low-mid, which somewhat muddies the mix. That said, the rest of the range is fairly flat. In songs like Hey Ya! by Outkast, vocals and instruments are present and clear throughout the mix, although the bassline starting in the first chorus clutters the sound a bit.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2's treble target compliance is very good. The range is mostly overemphasized across the range, and there's a slight mismatch between the L/R driver in the low-treble. Vocals and instruments are a bit brighter and more detailed, arguably piercing, in the right driver. The drivers are better-matched in the mid-treble, and sibilants like cymbals are piercing.

The peaks and dips performance of these over-ears is good, indicating they control their sound profile well for the most part. The bass and mids are rather smooth, with a slight bump in the mid-bass relative to the rest of the range, adding a bit of punch, while the center of the mids dips a little, pushing down leads a tiny bit. However, the most severe peaks and dips are in the treble range. There's a bit of driver mismatch, and the left driver is more affected by a dip in the low-treble, which hurts vocals and instruments. The mid-treble is uneven, resulting in dull or piercing sibilants like hi-hats, depending on the frequency.

The imaging performance is very good. Bowers & Wilkins usually have good quality control and ergonomics. Imaging can vary between units, though. Our unit's group delay is low, ensuring tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. Our unit's L/R drivers are also well-matched in phase, amplitude, and frequency response, ensuring the proper localization of sound objects like voices in the stereo image. While there's a small peak in the phase response's high-mid, this isn't audible with real-life content.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2's passive soundstage performance is disappointing, but that's normal from closed-back headphones. While they can create a very out-of-head soundstage, it doesn't feel very wide or natural. In addition, the soundstage doesn't feel as open or spacious as that created by open-back headphones.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2's weighted harmonic distortion is good. Although there's a narrow peak in the mid-treble range at normal listening volumes, it's very hard to hear with real-life content. As a result, audio sounds clean and pure at both normal and high volumes.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2's full-range noise isolation performance is excellent. While they don't attenuate much against lower-frequency sounds, these over-ears do better for mid and treble-range noises, where their passively isolating fit works in conjunction with the ANC.

These headphones perform decently when it comes to isolating you against common scenarios. They do a very good job of blocking out the din of a busy street and can effectively block out a good amount of airplane engine rumble. They aren't quite as efficient when cutting out the sounds of a busy office, though.

Wind noise can cause problems for ANC-equipped headphones by directly interacting with the mics, emitting a shrill, annoying tone. These headphones are particularly susceptible to this, especially when the wind noise comes from behind you. As a result, windy conditions can seriously impact ANC performance, and users can expect some distracting sounds when using these on a windy day.

The leakage performance is very good. Leakage is mostly concentrated in the high-mid to treble range, which sounds mostly thin. If you're listening to audio at a high volume in a noisy environment, it's unlikely that others around you will hear it.

The integrated mic has a decent recording quality. Your voice sounds clear and natural but lacking in body.

The integrated mic's noise handling performance is satisfactory. The mic can separate your voice from moderate ambient noise well, although the background sound can still be heard and is a bit distracting. Louder noises, like the passing of a train, can temporarily drown out your voice and make it difficult to hear you clearly.

The battery performance is excellent. The manufacturer advertises them to last 30 hours continuously, and we measured just over that. Battery life can vary depending on usage, though. Luckily, if you need to recharge them, a 15-minute charge can give you up to seven hours of continuous playback time. They also have a wear sensor that pauses audio and enters standby mode when you've taken them off your head. You can turn this feature on and off in the app, though.

Unlike their predecessor, they're not compatible with the Bowers & Wilkins Headphones app, and when trying to use this app, it'll redirect you to the Bowers & Wilkins Music app. This app offers okay customization settings, and you can see a video of it in action here. Unlike most other apps, there's only a bass and treble slider with up to +/- 6dB of adjustment range, which is a bit limiting. In addition to these sliders, you can check the battery life, adjust the multi-device connection, and switch app stream quality. You can also turn the wear sensor on and off, remap the quick action button, and adjust the environment controls.

We encountered disconnection issues when trying to use the app. Sometimes the app would cause the headphones to disconnect, and it wasn't possible to reconnect the headphones unless you closed and re-opened the app. If you're connected to more than one device, it also disconnects you from both devices, which is pretty frustrating. You can see a video of this happening here.

These headphones come with a USB-C to 1/8" TRS cable and a USB-C to USB-C cable that you can use for audio. The USB-C to USB-C cable and analog to USB-C cable both have a bit of latency as the headphones have to be turned on to receive audio via these connections, but overall, it's quite minor and hard to spot.

These over-ears have great Bluetooth connectivity. You can pair them with up to two devices at a time, and the app even stores previous Bluetooth connections so you can easily switch between sources. That said, the main device will always take priority if audio is playing from it, and to switch audio sources, you'll need to pause audio on the first device to switch to the second device. If you connect the headphones via USB-C, you can still connect with up to two Bluetooth devices.

Like their predecessor, they support aptX and aptX HD codec. However, they also support aptX Adaptive, which is a codec that dynamically changes its performance to give you either lower latency when streaming video, or better audio quality. That said, their latency on PCs is high via most codecs, which results in lip sync mismatch. That said, their audio lag via aptX Adaptive is much lower, which helps ensure that your audio and visuals stay in sync. Some apps compensate for latency differently, though.

These headphones can connect with full audio and mic compatibility to Bluetooth-enabled PCs. That said, If you want to use them via analog or with their USB-C to USB-C cable, you can only receive audio and can't use the mic.

You can use the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 with PlayStation consoles via analog or wired USB-C. However, you can only receive audio via these connections.

You can use these headphones via analog on Xbox consoles. You'll only receive audio, though.