Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2 review: Can wireless headphones beat rivals Sony, Bose and Apple?

Before Apple debuted its eye-wateringly expensive AirPods Max, Bowers & Wilkins was the go-to choice for anyone looking for a stylish pair of wireless headphones that boasted a sleek design, premium materials, and great sound quality. But with the arrival of the AirPods Max in late 2020, shoppers with that criteria were left with a tougher choice.

It’s taken almost three years for British brand Bowers & Wilkins to meticulously craft its follow-up to the Px7 headphones – and its response to the new competition from Apple, as well as the sustained threat from age-old industry rivals like Bose and Sony.

After all of that time, the pressure was really on. But the Px7 S2 headphones seriously deliver.

Bowers & Wilkins has meticulously refined everything that made its Px7 wireless headphones such a hit. But with a pair of second-generation purportedly AirPods Max on the horizon, are the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 once again the obvious choice for those looking for top-tier over-ear headphones to extinguish the background noise on their morning commute or long-haul flight? Our in-depth B&W Px7 S2 review has all of the answers.

Bowers & Wilkins has taken a different approach from some rival headphone manufacturers.

While Apple’s Spatial Audio feature relies on mind-bogglingly complex algorithms to map the sound around you, like a virtual surround sound floating around your head at all times that adapts as you move, Bowers & Wilkins set out with the goal to ensure that its headphones enable you to experience the music exactly as the original artist intended.

As a result those looking for skull-shaking bass won’t find it here. Instead, the Px7 S2 headphones deliver an incredibly detailed and rich sound, albeit one that remains neutral. That can sound a little flater than the pizzazz found in some rival headphones, but is ultimately much more rewarding. After all, it’s how your favourite albums are supposed to sound. 

Bowers & Wilkins wants the experience of listening on its Px7 S2 wireless headphones to be akin to its reference-quality 800 Series Diamond loudspeakers, which are used in recording studios across the globe. It’s a lofty goal, but one that its Px7 headphones largely achieve.

Seriously, you’ll notice minuscule details in the mix that you’ve missed with other headphones. Even if you’ve listed to the same track hundreds of times.

The breadth of the soundstage is very impressive. A common pitfall for noise-cancelling headphones is a claustrophobic feeling while listening for long periods at a time, but the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 offer superb breathing room when listing to your favourite album. Not only does this make listening for extended periods – like a long-haul flight, for example – pleasurable, but it also lets you distinguish between the finer details in the audio itself.

To deliver this clarity, the British brand has fitted the Px7 S2 headphones with 40mm bio cellulose drive units in each earcup, which Bowers & Wilkins proudly states are angled to point directly towards your eardrum. In practice, it’s tough to say how much of a difference that angle adjustment makes …or even whether my ear canal is a complementary design for the precision positioning by the Bowers & Wilkins engineers. However, the sound quality of these wireless headphones is staggeringly good – and that’s all that matters.

To really squeeze the most from the components inside the Px7 S2 headphones, you’ll need to use aptX HD or aptX Adaptive codec with Hi-Res files. While those listening with an iPhone or streaming from Spotify might miss some of the most delicate details, the listening experience is still brilliant.

And that’s good because Bowers & Wilkins doesn’t offer much in the way of customisation. Given the amount of work that has gone into fine-tuning these wireless headphones to mirror the output of the company’s own reference speakers, you can see the logic behind this one-size-fits-all approach. However, it’s a little disappointing at this price point that headphone owners can’t do more than increase or decrease the bass and treble by 6dB.

Inside the companion app on your smartphone, there is no EQ presets or manual equaliser to tinker with. That’s likely to disappoint some audiophiles.

Bowers & Wilkins says it has dramatically improved the active noise-cancellation (ANC) compared to the Px7 wireless headphones launched three years ago.

Dotted around the earcups are six high-performance microphones that monitor the hubbub surrounding you, which clever algorithms then eliminate. These microphones are also used during phone calls to boost overall call quality and eliminate the whistle of wind.

The Px7 S2 wireless headphones manage to quash lower frequencies, like the hum of a photocopier or the drone of aeroplane engines, with relative ease. Whether you’re watching a movie on a flight or listening to a podcast on a busy commuter train, Bowers & Wilkins will comfortably eliminate the background hum – so you won’t be forced to crank up the volume to a level that you’re uncomfortable with just to find out what’s going on.

Even without anything playing, there’s no annoying hiss to be heard, which means that wearing the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 wireless headphones to sleep on a flight will work well (not the case for all headphones with ANC).

That said, higher pitch noises cut-through the active noise-cancellation with ease. Unfortunately, that means meaning screaming babies on your next flight, or the screech of brakes on the morning commuter train will still disturb your favourite track. It’s something that plagues most active noise-cancellation – it just works better with consistent, rumbling background noise – but that said, the competition – Sony WH-1000XM4, Bose 700 and AirPods Max – all do a better job of reducing these sounds.

In fact, while the noise-cancellation on the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 works well, it’s not industry-leading. Overall, Bose, Sony and Apple all do a better job at consistently eliminating annoying noises so you can hear your music, audiobook, or podcast at the lowest volumes even in loud spaces.

Those looking to invest in a pair of headphones primarily to eliminate all background sounds might want to look elsewhere.

Looming over any pair of over-ear headphones is the threat that they’ll make you look like a Cyber-Man. It’s a serious problem that has afflicted some of the biggest brands on the market, but thankfully, Bowers & Wilkins has avoided that particular pitfall with its Px7 S2s. These over-ear headphones sport a slimmer profile on your head, which looks much better when wearing them on your travels. It also means they’re not as bulky if you want to hang them around your neck using the headband.

Bowers & Wilkins offers the Px7 S2s in Black, Blue or Grey. For this review, we took delivery of the plain ol’ Black, which might be a little reserved for some tastes, but we really liked.

B&W has injected some personality with a thin sliver band (the same detailing is gold on the Blue pair) around the earcups, which adds a little flair. The mix of textures found across the Px7 S2 headphones means that – even if you choose a plain colour option – these aren’t a block of uniform black plastic.

For the second-generation Px7 headphones, Bowers & Wilkins has reduced the amount of clamping force from the headband. These still feel incredibly sturdy and there’s no risk of them falling off, even if you decided to sprint for the bus wearing them. Likewise, adjusting the size of the headband takes a fair amount of oomph and, once in the perfect spot for your head, there’s no chance of these sliding back into an uncomfortable position, even if you place the headphones on the desk next to you for a bit, or wear them around your neck.

The redesigned headband also don’t put too much pressure on your head – coupled with the luxurious memory foam used inside the leatherette earcups – means that wearing the PS7 S2s for hours on end never bothered us. At 307g, the lightweight design (the Px7 S2s weigh 3g less than the 2019 Px7s) also helps with comfort. In comparison, the AirPods Max – which settled on aluminium instead of plastic – tip the scales at a hefty 384.8g. That’s the weight of the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 and two pairs of Apple AirPods in their charging cases.

The right cup has dedicated volume up and volume down buttons as well as one for play-pause and a slider to power on the headphones. There’s also a USB-C port for charging. Meanwhile, the sparsely-populated left cup only has a single action button, which can be customised in the Bowers & Wilkins app to summon the hands-free voice assistant associated with your phone or cycle through active noise-cancellation, pass-through, or disable both.

It’s a relief that Bowers & Wilkins didn’t opt for a touch-sensitive panel to control the main features of its new headphones as, in our experience, that often results in some pretty unpredictable behaviour from rival headphones. However, it would be nice to see a more even distribution of buttons across the two earcups as, in our first few weeks with the Px7 S2s, we did struggle to blindly hit the right button first-time (there is a texture to the play-pause button to make it easier to locate, but you’ll need to start stroking the buttons before deciding on which one to tap for that to work as expected …something our muscle-memory struggled to adapt to).

Inside the earcups are sensors to detect when the Px7 S2s are on your head, pausing automatically when you take them off. Bafflingly, this feature was disabled by default when we took the Px7 S2s out of the box, but there’s a toggle within the companion app that lets you switch on the feature and customise the sensitivity. By default, the sensor wasn’t quite sensitive enough for our tastes, taking a while to realise that we’d placed the headphones on the desk beside us before pausing our track. Thankfully, that was easily fixed with the app.

Bowers & Wilkins has dropped the 3.5mm headphone port found on the first-generation PS7 headphones, instead bundling a 1.2 metre USB-C to 3.5mm cable as standard in the tough carry case. That means you’ll still be able to use the Px7 S2s with the in-flight entertainment system on your next holiday or business trip without splashing out on an extra cable (something that isn’t the case for AirPods Max owners) but those who prefer wired listening experiences might lament the fact that they won’t be able to use any 3.5 to 3.5 cable.

USB-C charging – so you’ll be able to top-up your wireless headphones with the same cable used for your MacBook Pro, Kindle Paperwhite, Nintendo Switch, iPad Pro, and Android phone – is very welcome. It can also charge from 0-100% in around two hours, that’s one hour less than needed for its predecessor. The new Quick Charge support means that 15-minutes plugged into the wall will restore seven hours of battery, which is a real lifesaver when you’re desperately hunting for a plug at the airport as you won’t need long at all before you’re back up-and-running.

With a full charge, battery life on the Px7 S2 sits at 30 hours, which is the same as the 2019 predecessors but about spot-on from what you’d expect from wireless headphones at this price point.

Bowers & Wilkins launched the Px7 S2 in early 2022 on its own online store and a number of retail partners. Priced at £379, these noise-cancelling headphones match the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones – also launched earlier this year. The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 are available in Black, Blue or Grey.

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 are superb wireless headphones that put sound quality above all else.

Irrespective of the music genres that make up the majority of your playlists, the stunning Px7 S2s will handle it with aplomb. What it lacks in clever surround sound algorithms, Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 relies on the premium components nestled inside its stylish earcups.

Px7 S2 relies on Bluetooth 5.0 to connect wirelessly to two devices at a time – so you can switch between a phone and tablet, or phone or laptop connectivity, with SBC, AAC and aptX Adaptive codecs also supported out of the box for 24bit high-resolution audio. Wireless connections remain solid, even on a packed tube with plenty of other Bluetooth devices filling the airwaves and the Bowers & Wilkins headphones paired instantly the moment that we tapped the On button.

For our money, these are some of the most stylish wireless headphones on the market. Everything about the Px7 S2 headphones oozes quality. The mixture of textures across the cups and sliver of silver makes these headphones stand out from the crowd and look more sophisticated that the latest from Sony. The Bowers & Wilkins text on each earcup is a little much – surely a small B&W logo would’ve been a more subtle calling card? – but it’s a small nitpick in an otherwise gorgeous and refined design.

Fortunately, Bowers & Wilkins has put as much effort into the performance of the Px7 S2s as the appearance too. The active noise-cancellation does a solid job of eliminating the background hum of the morning commute or a long-haul flight, while the headband keeps everything secure and comfortable for the 30-hour battery life.

There are a few nitpicks: the Bowers & Wilkins companion app isn’t as full-featured as some of the competition with no support for EQ, the missing 3.5mm port will be a dealbreaker for some shoppers (although a USB-C to 3.5mm cable is included in the box), and it takes some adjustment to get the wear-detection sensor working as expected.

But the biggest shame is the active noise-cancellation doesn’t hit the same dizzying heights as Sony, Bose or Apple.

If you want neutral but supremely rich sound, Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 wireless headphones are the best on the market. The stylish design looks more sophisticated than some of its comparatively-priced rivals and the bundled carry case is tough and durable, with USB-C charging cable and USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable included in a dedicated compartment for your travels. It’s a compelling package …and an easy recommendation for those who want to get lost in their favourite songs.