BOWERS & WILKINS PX wireless noise-cancelling headphones
Silence is golden — or space-grey... is the PX B&W’s coming of age in the headphone field?
So after several weeks listening to the new Bowers & Wilkins PX wireless and noise-cancelling headphones, we’d say the company is on track to take over the mantle of executive headgear, such a delightful combination of style, sound and userfriendliness does the new PX design provide.
The PX is the speaker brand’s first noisecancelling wireless headphones. We don’t know if these have benefited from the software prowess of EVA Automation, the Silcon Valley company which purchased B&W in 2016, but if so then it bodes well, because the PX combines excellent sound quality with a number of cunning innovations, or at least ideas which others may have tried before, but which are delivered far more successfully by this new design.
NC presets
Take, for example, the app control of noise cancelling. This idea is not new, but B&W’s careful implemention of it is a good distance ahead of what we’ve seen before. The PX app offers three levels of noise cancellation (or, as it’s there termed, ‘Environment Filter’), each with a selectable level of voice passthrough. So there is ‘Office’
with very light noise cancelling, ‘City’ which is designed to reduce city noise, and ‘Flight’, with the heaviest of the three NC implementations. By default the Office and City modes include some level of voice passthrough (so office workers don’t have to do the waving table-banging thing to get your attention, or, in the city, so that you can stay aware of what’s happening around you). These defaults can be dialled down or up, depending how much you want to hear what’s going on around you, and as we’ll see, there’s also a small effect on sound quality, so you can pick precisely the level of cancellation versus quality to suit yourself in any given environment, through a marvellously simple interface. (We note the manual calls all this “Real World Listening features” — which ties in nicely with the UK’s Real World Studio’s close involvement in B&W’s Society of Sound high-res releases.)
No EQ, just music
And best of all, the app is not one to confuse the user by giving them a million possible EQ options and thereby buggering up what is an excellently delivered sound balance here. The 40mm PX drive units are derived from
the company’s reference P9 Signature headphones, using the same angled design (see below left) aiming at effective soundstaging. A “smart suspension system” helps the drivers’ abilities to ascend to frequencies up to 30kHz, says the literature, though the specifications say 20Hz to 20kHz, which is fine by us. The result is not a wide-open airy sound, rather a solid and musical one. How alive they sounded with Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone, Mike Bloomfield’s Telecaster full and real at the start, Al Kooper’s debut organ performance pushing high in the right channel, Dylan himself just perfectly toned, real, edgy and leading from the front.
What’s more, B&W has masterfully handled the difficult task of maintaining voicing across both cabled and wireless operation — we were impressed how little the Bluetooth sound is degraded compared with the wired connection. Far from dimming Dylan’s dynamic delivery, if anything the sneer gained in intensity, and the band played on. Has separate EQ been used for different connection types, rather than a compromise voicing for both? It certainly sounds like it. They thrilled us repeatedly via Bluetooth, Brubeck’s Take 5 super-wide, of course, being ping-pong recording, but dynamic and clear.
The different levels of noise cancelling did, perhaps inevitably, affect the sound somewhat — each iteration of noise-cancelling slightly reduced bass response and also pulled in the soundstaging, tightening towards the central position. Given there is a reasonable amount of passive noise reduction from the PX’s firm fit, we were often happy without noise-cancelling at all, though otherwise the ‘Office’ setting was our favourite, even for a rumbly bus commute, with the voice passthrough dropped to zero (we so rarely talk to fellow bus passengers, and don’t wish to hear their loud phone calls).
The PX supports the aptX codec for those Android phones which support it, and also the newer aptX HD, which applies the mildly lossy (about four times data reduction) algorithm to 24-bit signals to a maximum of 48kHz (see here for more on aptX HD).
They also play via USB (for which you must first deactivate Bluetooth), though they offered us only a 16kHz sample rate this way. Off your head... The other ‘best implementation’ we’ve seen is how the PX design handles its “Wear sensor”. PX is B&W’s first smart headphone, with built-in sensors that pause the headphones if you lift either earcup, and go into standby if you put them down or drop them around your neck.
This kind of behaviour has driven us crazy on some other headphones, because they have required manual restarting after even a momentary removal of the headphones. The PX is rather smarter, switching back on when you wear them again, even if it’s the following morning. And making the previous Bluetooth connection. And restarting your music.
So when we used the PX headphones for several days with Sony’s A1 OLED TV (which can send its audio via Bluetooth), we could simply put on the headphones, they would connect to the TV and mute its speakers without any other interaction required. Better still we could just put them down on the table for the connection to be severed and the sound to return through the A1’s Acoustic Surface audio system. Which meant the missus didn’t wake us at 2am asking why there was no sound on the TV, as happened with previous Bluetooth headphones used in this way.
So top work, and the app allows adjustment of Wear Sensor sensitivity if you find them a bit overzealous in operation, or to turn it off entirely if you’re allergic to such cleverness.
General operation was equally intuitive, with the right earcup having a play/pause button and volume up/down rockers, a small button to invoke or cancel the Environment Filter, and a sliding button which powers on or off the headphones, should you choose to do that rather than enjoy the auto power saving feature. The play/pause button also answers incoming calls using the headset’s microphones. All these operate in Bluetooth only mode, not when listening with a cable or via USB.
The app can also be used to upgrade not only itself but the actual headphones too, should future firmware arrive to improve them. The app first checks the headphones have enough battery life to update successfully, and if not you’ll be instructed to charge them up before performing the update. Again, thoughtful stuff. Battery life is quoted at 22 hours wireless noise cancellation, or 33 hours in wired noise cancellation mode. Cabled operation is not entirely passive, but extends battery life to 50 hours.
Not knowing the price during our early play, we fully expected the PX to surface at $799 or higher, so we’re impressed to see the pricing released in Australia at $549.95. They’re available in ‘Space Grey’ or ‘Soft Gold’ etchedaluminium finishes, and both, we think, look downright ‘executive sexy’.
So, downsides? Nothing other than that slight shrinking of sound under heavy NC, and the app (in early form) taking time to ‘find’ the PX, and repeating this search even after a moment off in our preferred music app. Such app glitches are easily updated, and B&W’s PX shows the company coming of age, to our ears, in their delivery of headwear with a design you’ll surely see soon in a business-class seat near you, should you be so lucky.