Bowers & Wilkins PI7

They make your ears look scruffy

£349 / stuff.tv/pi7

We’ve seen a glut of audiophile brands launching true wireless earbuds recently. Cambridge Audio, KEF, Grado and Devialet are among those to join Bang & Olufsen in attempting to take a slice of the Airpods Pro pie.

Why? Because the $25bn headphone market is projected to rise to $120bn by 2027, with true wireless and active noise-cancelling the most sought-after features.

A no-brainer, then, for British hi-fi brand Bowers & Wilkins to join the party. But the PI7S are no ordinary ANC buds… with no ordinary price tag. Each one gets dual drivers with dual amps, but it’s the charging case that opens up a new world of listening.

Physically connect it to an in-flight entertainment system, games console or computer and it’ll act as a bridge, retransmitting lovely aptx Low Latency audio through the buds and into your ears. That’s cool… but is it ‘£100 more than the Airpods Pro’ cool?

Grand blaster flash

With gold accents accompanying a white or charcoal finish (1), the PI7S are flash in the flesh. They’re not the smallest or the lightest, and they only last four hours, but it still feels like there are some Tardis-like qualities at play to pack in dual drivers each with its own dedicated amplifier.

Two-pack shaker

That dual sound setup is split between a 9.2mm custom driver for the lower frequencies and a high-frequency ‘balanced armature’ driver (2). You’ll also find six mics around the buds for handling Siri or Google Assistant voice requests and detecting ambient noise for the ANC (3).

Mos deaf

For £350 you’d expect them to have supreme noise-cancelling abilities – and for the most part they impressed us, blocking out most of what the creaking London Underground served up. But if you want a complete blackout, they’re edged by Bose’s Quietcomfort Earbuds.

Qi-tip

We’ve seen slinkier charging cases, and its 16-hour capacity isn’t exactly special either, but then a 15-minute Qi wireless charge did give us two hours of play time, and that super-smart retransmission tech (see panel) realistically has to be accounted for somewhere.

Throb deep

Where the PI7S excel is with hi-res audio. There’s so much detail, with the dual drivers working overtime to provide incredible separation. Lows are deep but refined, mids clear and open, and highs inoffensive… which is just as well as there’s no EQ adjustment with the app.