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As before, the Music App simplifies the connection of the Px8 to a mobile device, supports the fine-tuning of the sound through adjustable EQ (just treble and bass) and gives at-a-glance details of noise cancellation and battery life. As with Px7 S2, the performance of the system has been improved from B&W's original Px7 by moving the two external microphones closer together, adjusting the angling of each microphone to improve voice capture and changing the position of the second mic to reduce wind noise interference.
These are over-ears you'll want to be seen in –ideally, on a yacht in the Maldives (Image credit: Future) Bowers & Wilkins PX8 review: design Not only are the PX7s insightful, but their sonic character also prioritises entertainment – they are the headphone equivalent of that friend with seemingly inexhaustible supplies of energy. This is a refined listen too without sounding overly smooth. The Px8 are certainly revealing enough to show up shortcomings in the source or recording, so you’ll need to make sure the signal feed into them is good enough to allow them to shine. A slightly cool tonal balance doesn’t help them to be forgiving either, though they won’t go out of their way to make things sound worse than they are. These are headphones you'll want to be seen in. Their ideal environment might be a business-class flight to Milan or the Maldives. The build here is all die-cast aluminum arms, diamond-cut bright metal detailing and Nappa leather trim. Think all that metal means they'll be heavy? Actually no –the weight is perfect for us. While they feel secure, there's no overly strong clamping force either.And also as you'd expect, these cans come with a hard-shell, fabric covered carry case, but this one is particularly nice since the supplied cables (USB-C to USB-C for charging, USB-C to 3.5mm if your device has such a port) have their own little compartment with a magnetized lid, situated in the dead space beneath the arc of the headband. Another tweak in the Px8s is that the Carbon Cone drive units are carefully angled inside each earcup to ensure the entire driver’s surface is at a consistent distance from the listener’s ear, to keep the soundstage accurate.
The PX7s look and feel a little cheaper than their predecessor, but we’d take them for their extra comfort. Ultimately, they’re still one of the more striking pairs of headphones on the market. B&W doesn't offer levels of noise cancellation like some competitors do, and instead keeps things simple with on, off and pass-through. That's no problem for us - a good transparency mode is more than enough for our needs, but it's something to consider if you like to tweak your noise cancellation levels further than that. No Mono's Fever Highs show us just how low the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 headphones are prepared to go too,and it's as zealous a performance as it is spine-tinglingly detailed through the high-notes in Tom Snowdon's haunting vocal. Battery life? It's good –30 hours. ANC? Of course; it's the same proprietary Bowers & Wilkins-optimised six-mic noise cancellation tech as the PX& S2 (two mics measure the output of each drive unit, two react to ambient noise from the outside world, two handle voice clarity with enhanced noise suppression), and in our tests we found the PX& S2 fared absolutely fine here, if unable to trounce the Sony WH-1000XM5 for noise nixing. Yes, the PX8 echo the current inclination towards designs with cups that rotate to lie flat but do not fold up, including the Sony WH-1000XM5and Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2(over the older, foldable Sony WH-1000XM4, say).
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Stream Stormzy's Vossi Bop and it's a similar story; the bass just feels a tad overstated and we're losing the upper midrange –which includes Stormzy's emotive lyrics. Bloated is too strong a word, but it's just a little too hot and heavy in the mix. READ NEXT: The best Bluetooth headphones to buy this year Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 review: What did we like about them? First things first: these cans look and feel utterly glorious. The classy tan colorway is a new venture for B&W and one we like very much indeed. We caveat this early appraisal by stating that we had around an hour with the PX8 in total –not long enough to head outside and test how well they cancelled traffic, or how generously they filtered in ambient sounds when we wanted them to. We also did not toy with the in-app features or EQ presets a great deal. All of that will be part of the full review. Of course, that's all very nice indeed, but how they sound when you put them on your head is what really matters. And it may not surprise you to hear that B&W has not dropped the ball from a performance perspective.
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