Headphone news from B&W and Sennheiser

At $649 the Bowers and Wilkins P7 headphones were generally considered to offer good value. The price has recently been dropped to $499, making them a bargain. Great performance, well made and comfortable, that is a lot of headphone for the money.

We have also recently received the wireless version of the P7 (above centre), and at $599 these also offer great value.

They have also just released their P9 Signature headphones (above left) to mark the company’s 50th anniversary. These headphones were engineered by the same team responsible for 800 D3 speakers, beautifully crafted with the fit and finish being reminiscent of a luxury European motor car. They are comfortable to wear and their performance is superb. The P9 headphones are available for $1399.

Another recent addition to our headphone range is the upgrade to the Sennheiser HD 800, the HD 800 S. The ‘S’ version comes with an additional XLR-4 balanced cable for use with the growing number of headphone amplifiers offering a balanced socket. However the key difference is in the sound, mainly through the implementation of their ‘absorber technology’, initially developed for their in-ear IE800’s. This technology preserves the audibility of very high frequency sounds by eliminating a phenomenon known as the “masking effect”, where the human ear struggles to hear some frequencies when lower frequencies of a higher volume occur at the same time. By absorbing resonance, Sennheiser’s patented absorber technology prevents unwanted peaks and allows all frequency components – even the finest nuances – in the music material to become audible.

The new model is a very attractive matt black finish, instead of the silver finish of its less expensive sibling. While the difference in price between the two models is significant at $600, we believe that the difference in performance warrants the difference, and have taken the decision to carry only the 800 S as a stock line in the future.