Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Wireless Headphones Review

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 are high-end headphones with a sleek and refined look. They have a similar shape to the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 Wireless, with silver accents on the ear cups and the manufacturer's logo embossed on the centerpiece. They come in two main color variants: 'Black' and 'Tan'. They also come in two collaboration colorways: 'McLaren', which is black with orange accents, and '007', a midnight blue variant with a James Bond theme.

These headphones are quite comfortable. Their ear cup and headband padding is Nappa leather, which feels softer and more plush against the skin than the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 Wireless. The ear cups themselves have a deep fit to accommodate most sizes of ears and have a snug fit. They don't clamp too tightly, although you may feel more pressure if you have a large head. You can wear these over-ears for long periods without feeling fatigued.

These headphones have good physical controls; you can see a video of them in use here. The controls have a nice click when pressed, and the right ear cup's control scheme is well-spaced out. The multi-function button also has a groove to help you tell it apart from other buttons. There are different chimes to help distinguish each environmental (ANC) control. However, they lack a chime to let you know when you've reached min or 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.
  • Press and hold: Declines a call. If you're in a call, it merges two calls.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 aren't very portable, but that's normal for over-ear headphones. You can swivel their ear cups to lay flat, but they can't fold into a more compact shape. Luckily, they come with a carrying case to help protect the headphones when not in use.

The carrying case is great. It's basically the same as the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 Wireless, but the felt inside is black instead of cream-colored, which is easier to keep clean. The case is sturdy and has a zipper to completely close the case. There's also a pocket to store the included cables, but its cover feels like nice cardboard.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have excellent build quality. They have a high-end design with Nappa leather padding, aluminum hinges, and brushed metal detailing. Unlike the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 Wireless, the ear cups have a leather finish instead of a cloth finish, which helps them look more premium. Overall, they feel sturdy and will survive accidental drops and falls without taking too much damage.

These headphones have a stable fit. They'll stay in place if you listen to music at your desk or on a walk. That said, if you like to bang your head to the music, they'll move around your head and can even fall off.

• Bowers & Wilkins Px8 headphones
• USB-C to 1/8" audio cable
• USB-C to USB-C charging/audio cable
• Carrying case
• Manuals

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have a bass-heavy sound that delivers extra thump, rumble, and boom to mixes. Vocals and instruments are a bit muddied in the mix, though, and are a bit veiled. You can also see a comparison of the sound profile with the ANC on and off here. There's less bass when the ANC is off, and the mids are slightly recessed. However, this difference is quite minor. On the upside, if you prefer a different sound, their companion app offers a two-band EQ to help you adjust their bass and treble.

Although the manufacturer released firmware 3.0.0, which they mention offers 'improvements in audio performance', this hasn't changed the frequency response of these headphones. You can see a comparison between firmware 2.0.0 and 3.0.0 here.

The frequency response consistency of these over-ears is mediocre. They're prone to inconsistencies in audio delivery, and you may especially notice a drop in bass if you have thick hair or wear glasses. As a result, you'll need to take the time to ensure a good fit each time you use them to get a more consistent sound.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8's bass accuracy is decent. The response is overemphasized across the range. This results in extra thump, punch, and boom, making them a solid choice for songs like Starkid by The Weeknd, with a prominent bassline throughout the track. However, this added bass muddies the rest of the mix.

These over-ears have excellent mid accuracy. Overemphasis in the bass range extends into the mid-range, cluttering the mix a bit. That said, the mid-mid fairly flat, so vocals and instruments are still present in the mix, although a dip in the high-mid hurts their detail.

The treble accuracy is just decent. The response is mostly underemphasized, so vocals and instruments are veiled. That said, sibilants like cymbals are still bright.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8's peaks and dips performance is okay. The most significant deviations are mostly in the treble range. That said, a bump in the mid to high-bass adds a touch of extra punch and boom to mixes, while some driver mismatch in the high-mid weakens vocals and instruments in the right driver more than the left. However, that's reversed when a dip in the low-treble impacts the left driver and veils vocals and instruments. An uneven mid-treble makes sibilants like S and T sounds alternatingly dull and piercing.

Bowers & Wilkins generally produces products with well-matched drivers. However, imaging varies across units, and our unit's L/R drivers are very mismatched in phase response. A warping whistle sound came from the high-bass to mid-range of the headphones, which skewed the audio to the right. Male voices like that in Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys also drifted between the center and left when the vocals should be more centered. The guitar on the right side also had some distortion present. The warping whistling sound was also present in the mid-range in piano songs.

The passive soundstage performance is poor. These are closed-back headphones, so they don't create an open or spacious soundstage. While it manages to feel wide, it doesn't seem natural, and sound is still perceived as if coming from inside your head rather than from speakers placed in the room around you.

While there aren't any virtual soundstage features in the companion app, you can access Dolby Atmos on Xbox for a more immersive audio experience. However, you'll need to purchase a license to use it.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8's weighted harmonic distortion performance is very good. Even though there's a narrow peak in the mid-treble at normal listening volumes, it's hard to spot with real-life content. As such, your audio sounds clean, pure, and normal at high volumes.

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

These headphones have a great full-range noise isolation performance. They're equipped with an ANC system and can reduce mid-range sounds like ambient chatter and treble range sounds like the high-pitched hum of AC units well. However, they aren't quite as effective when it comes to cutting down bass range sounds like traffic, especially compared with competitors like the Bose QuietComfort 45/QC45 Wireless.

When using the passthrough mode, which allows you to hear conversations without taking off the cans, voices sound thin. While you'll still hear the person clearly, the passthrough mode feels unnatural.

The ANC system doesn't do quite as good of a job when it comes to isolating you from more common sounds. They can block out some noise in these scenarios. However, the attenuation isn't anything to write home about, especially compared to other premium models like the Bose QuietComfort 45/QC45 Wireless, which do a significantly better job in this regard.

These over-ears have a hard time handling wind noise. Wind directly interacts with the ANC's microphones, and the ANC system picks it up as noise, even though the sound doesn't reach your ears. This creates unwanted and annoying noise when the ANC is on. The wind angle also impacts the amount of wind noise present, and these headphones lack a wind reduction feature to help reduce it.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8's leakage performance is good. Leakage is spread throughout the frequency spectrum but is slightly more noticeable in the high-mid to low-treble range. That said, if you're listening to audio at high volumes in a moderately noisy environment, it isn't noticeable to those around you.

The integrated mic has a satisfactory recording quality. Your voice sound natural and clear, although a bit thin. However, you won't have trouble being understood.

The mic's noise handling performance is also okay. The mic can separate speech from moderate ambient noise well, but there's a small dip in voice quality. When it comes to loud and inconstant noise, speech can briefly be lost, but the noise doesn't completely overpower your voice.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8's battery performance is excellent. The manufacturer advertises them to last 30 hours, and we measured over that, though keep in mind that battery life varies depending on use. Luckily, if you want to stretch out their playback time, they have a standby mode that helps conserve battery life if you forget to turn them off. They also have a quick charge feature that advertises 15 minutes of charge time to supply up to seven hours of playback. That said, if you want to use them wired with their analog to USB-C cable, the headphones must be on, so you can't use them passively.

The Bowers & Wilkins Music app is decent, and you can see a video of how it works here. Although it isn't as robust or feature-loaded as other apps like Sony | Headphones Connect, it offers customization options like ANC controls, bass and treble sliders, and button mapping. You can also check the headphones' battery life, adjust the multi-device connection or app stream quality, and toggle on and off settings like auto standby and wear sensor. However, there's no option to reduce wind noise, like with the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H95 Wireless.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 come with a 1/8" TRS to USB-C cable that's 1.20 m long and a USB-C to USB-C cable that's 1.19 m long. While they have slight latency via both connections, it's quite minor. You can also use the ANC controls if you're connected via analog to USB-C. However, using wired USB mode will turn off Bluetooth.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have very good Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing so you can stay connected to your smartphone and PC simultaneously. The app also stores previous connections so you can switch between them. However, the main device will always take priority if you're playing audio from it, and you'll need to pause the audio on one device to play it on the second. Otherwise, the audio will switch back to the first device. If you're using the analog to USB-C cable, you can still use multi-device pairing, too.

These headphones support multiple codecs, which is handy if you like to stream audio in high quality or with lower latency. These headphones have high latency via SBC, aptX, or aptX HD, so if you're looking to keep latency lower via PC, you'll want to use aptX Adaptive, which has lower latency and falls within good levels. That said, some apps and devices compensate for latency.

These headphones can connect to PCs via Bluetooth with full audio and mic compatibility. If you connect them via analog or wired USB, you can only receive audio and can't use their mic.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 only support audio via analog on PS4 and PS5 or USB on PS5. You can't use their mic with any of these connections, though. While 3D audio works, you will have no audio controls from the headphones themselves, and you'll need to adjust them via the console volume settings.

You can connect the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 to your Xbox console by plugging their analog cable into your controller's AUX port. However, you'll only receive audio and can't use their mic. If you're looking for a more immersive audio experience, you can use Dolby Atmos, but it requires a license. In addition, you won't have any audio controls, so you'll need to manually adjust them using the console's volume settings.