Bowers & Wilkins PX Noise Cancelling Headphones

First this is a written copy of my video review, which can be found on youtube under the title "Bowers & Wilkins PX - The Wireless Headphones to Beat in 2018" If you would like to watch that rather than read, then head to youtube and copy and paste that title into the search engine. And as always thank you for the support. Below is my written review. Hello Ladies & Gentlemen, Devon from Dcon here and these are Bowers & Wilkins PX wireless headphones. They are noise-cancelling headphones and they weigh 335 grams. Bluetooth 4.1 is built-in and these headphones are APTx HD compliant.The battery life ranges between 22-29 hours and USB Type-C is implemented for recharging. These headphones and are very low key and modern. I have the space grey version, which allows it to be even more minimalistic, but there is also a blue and gold variant that is a bit more exuberant if that’s your thing. Each cup rotates 135 degrees giving the headphones a foldable design making it easy to pack away into the carrying pouch. The outer cups and headband are covered in this checkered fabric, while the inner earcups and headband is constructed of memory foam and are enclosed in a soft leather material. The memory foam and leather are really nice and allow the headphones to be extremely comfortable. The circumference of the earpads is a bit on the small side. They’re fine for my ears, but I could see this being a problem for others as it may cause some discomfort. The headband is adjustable and can be extended by simply pulling each side downward. The speaker wire is nicely covered in a nylon-braided cover and runs along each adjustable rod. While in design this looks great, in practicality it is a poor design-choice as they will likely get damaged if you get caught in the rain. Back to the ear cups for a second, this plastic piece here is more than just a branding opportunity; it also covers the rear part of the speaker. This allows the headphones to be a closed-back headphone opposed to an open-back headphone. So you may be thinking Devon why do I care if my headphones are closed-back? Well one reason is they help limit noise from leaking out of the headphone as well as preventing noise from coming in. This is nice for when you are in a crowded area such as a coffee shop and you don’t want to disturb or be disturbed by anyone around you. Closed-back headphones also provide you with a more confined soundstage which allows for a more intimate listening experience, whereas open-back headphones allow for a much more expansive soundstage. Think of this as seeing a concert at a much smaller venue such as Lincoln Hall versus a much larger venue such as the Red Rocks. The main reason why these are close-backed though is to implement the noise-cancelling feature, which I’ll talk about further in a minute. Along the right earcup is where all the functionality lies. The power button doubles as the Bluetooth pairing button. Holding the button down for a few seconds sends the headphones into pairing mode, where up to 8 devices can be remembered. To turn the headphones off, you slide the power button to the left. Interestingly enough, B&W does not recommend turning the headphones off, they recommend letting the headphones go into standby mode. After a few minutes of no activity the headphones will go to sleep. This actually works quite well as the battery holds a fantastic charge while in standby and is just one less thing you have to worry about when taking them off. Just above the power button is the “environmental mode” button. This activates the noise-cancelling feature. There is three sensitivity options for noise-cancellation, all of which are accessible via B&W’s phone application. Airline is the most aggressive of the three, as it attempts to cancel out any external engine noise. The noise-cancellation works well, but is nowhere near as aggressive or effective as Bose’s quiet-comfort series, which virtually cut out all sound around you. This can be a good or bad thing depending on your preference, I personally prefer the less aggressive approach of these headphones. The included three modes are a nice touch, but I honestly couldn’t tell a major difference between them. The noise-cancellation is great when in a noisier environment, but I recommended leaving it off when you are in a quiet environment as the sound is degraded some and your battery will discharge at a slightly faster rate with it activated. The remaining buttons are your standard volume up, volume down and play/pause in between. The play button also doubles as a track selector. Pressing it twice will move to the next track, while pressing it three times will select the previous track. With the headphones on, there is a slight learning curve with all of the buttons. The play button is slightly raised to differentiate it from the volume up and down, but I don’t think it’s enough to minimize mistakes. After extended use, you’ll get used to it, but I just personally think it could have been better designed. Spacing the buttons apart and texturizing the play/pause button would have been ideal. Since these headphones are Bluetooth, they’re capable of receiving calls. To answer a call, you simply press the play button. To reject a call you simply hold the play button down. In terms of call quality it was slightly awkard hearing the person I was talking to. The connection and quality was fine, but their voice was really muffled. The included microphone does a nice job however and everyone I talked to reported positive feedback on call quality. Located toward the bottom is the 3.5mm headphone port and the USB type-c port. Both are capable of listening to music via a wired connection. The USB type-c cable allows you to listen to music and charge at the same time. These are convenient options if you wanted to use a device that is not APTx HD compliant and you wanted to listen to lossless music, otherwise they kind of defeat the purpose of wireless headphones. Before I talk about the sound quality, I wanted to quickly mention the battery. It is a 850mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery and it is fantastic. B&W is touting 22 hours of battery life when using noise-cancellation and 29 hours when only using the headphones wirelessly. During my testing I was able to get around 20 hours with noise cancellation and 26 hours without it. All while allowing the cans to go into standby mode in between. Alright now on to what really matters: the sound. These headphones are APTx HD compliant and in short APTx HD means these wireless headphones can receive lossless audio from any compatible device. This is insane, because lossless audio was only available via a wired connection due to their large file size and now with the APTx HD codec, lossless audio is available via wireless connections. For anyone unfamiliar with lossless audio, essentially this is audio without any compression. Audio printed on CD’s for example is completely lossless. While music streamed from Pandora, spotify or purchased from iTunes is all compressed. Compressed audio is bad because you end up losing a lot of the fidelity that makes music so amazing. Alright now I will actually talk about the quality of sound these headphones produce. These headphones sound really, really good. They hit low enough to make bass feel substantial without bottoming out or sounding boomy. The midrange is nice and accurate, while the treble is a little on the bright side and can cause some minor ear fatigue after long listening sessions. The soundstage presented is a bit constrained and that is a limitation of the closed-back design, but the actual separation of instruments is really nice. By this I mean there is nice clarity among different instruments on a track when they are all playing at once. For example, you’re able to differentiate a guitar from a bass guitar all while hearing a tambourine off in the distance when listening to “New Slang” by The Shins. Instruments don’t necessarily sound as true to life as you’ll find on more expensive headphones and that’s only due to the limitations of the drivers implemented, which is honestly expected for any headphone under $500 dollars. Overall the sound is very impressive and in my opinion is the best sounding wireless headphone available in 2018. If you’re like me and you want a minimalistic wireless headphone without compromising on compressed audio, then this is absolutely the headphone for you. Not only is lossless audio possible with these, but the battery life is incredible and they are very comfortable for extended periods of time. The noise-cancellation is implemented nicely, although it is not as aggressive as Bose’s quiet-comfort series. So if noise-cancellation is your main priority for flights, work or studying and you don’t care about lossless audio capabilities, then go with the quietcomforts. But if you care about sound quality first and foremost, these are your guys!