Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 Review

Design

• Tight, grippy fit
• Great ergonomics
• Physical buttons for operation

Like with the Px7 S3, Bowers & Wilkins has wrung a few changes with the Px8 S2’s design. The buttons have been rearranged with Bluetooth/power on the left earcup alongside the ANC button, while the right earcup is just for the playback and volume controls. It’s not a move I would felt necessary but after a while I got used to the rejigged placement.

The Px8 S2 are slimmer, the (still oval) earcups are actually slightly less deep than the Px8; the headband is wider to accommodate more heads, the sculpted Aluminum linkages that connect the headband and the earcups grace it with a look that is certifiably premium.

The Px8 S2 are a great-looking pair of wireless headphones and comfortable to wear too. The clamping force is firm and provides the feeling of the headphones being glued to your head with less shifting as you move your head. The earpads provide a nice surface contact against the head, the earcups envelope my ears without feeling tight. At 310g they’re heavier than most, but their weight is less than the AirPods Max 2.

They come in Onyx Black and Warm Stone versions (with a special edition McLaren F1 edition too), but regardless of the version, they’re decked headband to earcup in Nappa leather, which won’t do for the Vegans out there. I’d expect Bowers to add more finishes over time, just like they’ve done with other headphones.

The headphones can’t be folded, which will annoy some, but the carry case (which has a compartment for USB-C and 3.5mm cable) has a slimmer profile and different shape so that it doesn’t take up as much space as before.

Features

• Confident noise cancellation
• Resilient wireless connection
• Very good call quality

Bluetooth 5.3 support covers everything from the lower quality SBC to aptX Adaptive – and this time the headphones do carry support for aptX Lossless and the Snapdragon Sound platform. You will need a compatible smartphone to make the most of the ‘lossless performance.

The wireless performance is the same as it has been with previous Bowers & Wilkins headphones – which is strong. When under fire from interference, the soundstage of the headphones shrinks and slightly changes in tone, but the connection doesn’t break up – that’s aptX Adaptive codec in work right there.

The headphones also support USB-C audio, a feature the Px8 skipped on but the Px8 S2 supports up to 24-bit/96kHz.

Where you’ll find the bulk of the features is in the Bowers & Wilkins Music app. You can stream and control music directly from the app itself, with supported services including Tidal, Qobuz, SoundCloud, last.fm, TuneIn, and Deezer.

The home page acts as a discovery page of sorts for music curation, with tracks and playlists featuring, though it doesn’t seem to be updated very often.

Switch to the actual settings page for headphones where you can swap between ‘Environment Control’ modes (including ANC, pass-through and off): the Advanced EQ modes where there’s a slightly more in-depth a five-band EQ (previously you could just adjust the treble and bass -6dB to 6dB) or stick with Bowers’ True Sound experience, which it says doesn’t add or takeaway from the recording.

Below is the True Immersion mode, which is not Bowers’ attempt at spatial audio but intended to recreate the experience of listening to music with a pair of speakers in front of you for a more natural and immersive experience.

There’s the Wear sensor function (Low, Normal, High) where you can raise the sensitivity of the headphones auto playback feature when you take them off. Streaming quality from within the app can be tweaked depending on whether you’re on Mobile data or Wi-Fi.

Battery Life

• 30 hours of battery
• Fast charging

Again, there’s been no gain in terms of the battery life with Bowers & Wilkins claiming that 30 hours is more than enough. A 15-minute charge claims to be enough for another seven hours of use.

I put the headphones through my usual test of playing a Spotify playlist at 50% volume, and in an hour the headphones lost 4%. That’s not quite the 30 hours that Bowers claims, averaging out at about 25 instead.

Noise Cancellation

• More dedicated mics for ANC
• Clear transparency mode

Here’s where things get slightly disappointing with the Px8 S2. The noise-cancelling should be better.

I’ve worn these on flights and public transport, as well as comparing them with a pink noise test against other capable ANC headphones.

Worn on a plane and I found that they did reduce cabin and engine noise considerably. Not to the standard of the Sony WH-1000XM6, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 or even the Sennheiser HDB 630, but they Px8 S2 were confident enough in suppressing constant sounds.

They’re fine at cutting down noise at a train station or on a train. While they’re not completely silent, they provide a decent sense of calm but often I felt the need to raise the volume to keep external sounds at bay, otherwise ambient noise would get through, especially people’s voices.

In fact, the headphones aren’t great at suppressing voices, which evaded the noise-cancelling mics despite Bowers’ claim that the new mic set-up (which has two extra mics dedicated to ANC) blocks out more noise. That isn’t the case.

Disappointingly, they don’t seem any better than the previous Px8 at cancelling noise.

The transparency mode comes across with clarity and it sounds natural as well, do I did find I had to pause audio to hear announcements on a plane, but otherwise it’s fine and a better effort than the Px7 S3.

Call quality is another area where Bowers & Wilkins boasts improvements but in the real world it’s a disappointment. Like the Px7 S3 it lets in a lot of noise in loud areas, so while the person on the other side said I sounded fine, it’s a pair of headphones that are better to use for calls in quiet areas where there’s less noise competing with your voice.

Sound Quality

• Punchy, energetic bass
• Improved levels of detail and clarity
• True Immersion mode sound artificial

The true litmus test of a premium pair of headphones is how they sound, and the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 sound very good – though I do have some caveats.

The drivers remain 40mm dynamic full range carbon cone drive units, though the chassis and motor has been upgraded in a similar method as the Px7 S3.

The Px8 S2 are definitely crisper in tone, sharper and more detailed than their predecessors; and like with the Px7 S3, Pi6 and Pi8 headphones, there’s an energy, dynamism and loudness that’s better than what came before. At their best, they’re a pulsating listen.

Highs are brighter and more detailed than they on the Px8, with a listen to GoGo Penguin’s Ascent a showcase for more energy and presence to the bass performance.

With Maye’s La Canción, the Px8 S2 output a punchy bass that carries more energy than the Px8 could ever do. These headphones hit the bass hard but cleanly and with control. There’s more depth and extension with the low frequencies, the feeling with the Px8 S2 is that you’re hearing more of what’s in the track, the headphones extracting a greater level of fidelity.

There crispness of the headphones’ tone can be heard in Maye’s voice, clearer, sharper and with the overall sound more forward and closer to your ears. There’s greater levels of dynamism too – Norah Jones’ vocals in I Don’t Know Why sounds more swift, more dynamic and again there’s the energy the headphones bring to proceedings.

With the more forward presentation, there’s also more depth to the soundstage than there was with the original Px8; which leads to a better separation of singer’s voices from the instruments around them.

There are greater levels of detail and clarity with the Px8 S2, and it ends up feeling more precise and detail-rich, making the Px8 sound a little less clearer, detailed and defined. If Bower’s mission was to make the older headphones sound less special, they’ve succeeded.

But those caveats I mentioned earlier rear their heads every now and then. The new amplifier that’s part of the driver ups the level of energy, and while it’s not grating, it’s a bigger, livelier, full-on sound with almost every track. Of course, I could turn the volume down but the Bowers sound less fluent.

But another issue is that while Bowers & Wilkins claims the Px8 S2 produces low distortion, the headphones seem to raise the noise floor with a few tracks, the background noise that’s there in the track is made more obvious.

There’s noise in a Qobuz track of GoGo Penguin’s Ascent, and it’s present to a lesser extent in Maye’s La Cancion. To go with the increased levels of sharpness, detail and energy; it can make the Px8 S2 slightly aggressive in its approach, the crispness of the headphones’ tone can make them sound a little thin.

Every track I listen to on the Px8 S2 sounds better than it does on the Px8, but I do wish they were slightly less sharp and bright in their approach.

USB-C audio probably offers the best in terms of balance between energy, clarity, and detail. The headphones sound more controlled, slightly more natural too. They’re still aggressive but a better balance is struck (at least to my ears).

The True Immersion feature is the one where the headphones fare the worse. It’s a crisp sound that aims for more depth than the True Sound mode but it doesn’t as natural with vocals which comes with slightly brittle, processed and harsh sounding. The bass power is similar, and clarity is good but this isn’t a mode I’d like to listen to music in. It doesn’t sound immersive but artificial.

Should you buy it?