Hey!
By no means is this a review, but I need to say this is the first time when my personal impression of a headphone is so off of what 80% of forum members write so I will share purely for the sake of discussion.
First, of all, I owned a lot of headphones in my life, also BW PX, that I hated initially but loved in the end. Odd. Remember replacing them with H9 and really feeling like I left an old friend. Currently, I use, Focal Clear OG at home, Sennheiser Momentum 3 ( EQ-ed), Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless ( EQ-ed), and finally my beloved Sony XBA-Z5+Kimber+nw503. I also listen to Focal speakers (Kanta2+Naim Nova), so I am used to focal sound, but I would not say that I consider it as the only one sounding right, I do love XBA-Z5 with its more full presentation, just as Momentum 3 ( toned down bass EQ).
Just recently, due to intensive trips planned I started looking into ANC headphones. I focused on 2: Bathys and PX8. To put Bathys of the discussion mostly, I would say they sound great overall, with little boxy/ boomy timber or echo around voice frequencies ( I did not like that on Radiance too ), wired base response sounding almost like slight lack of power in internal dac/amp compensated with EQ, and really so so looks and comfort to me. That is why I decided to try PX8.
First, they do look amazing. Like stellar really. I would not change a thing here. They are also amazingly comfortable for me, I almost forgot I was wearing them at the shop. It was a freshly opened box so, probably it would get even better. For me, it was an amazing experience of a classy look and comfort. Definitely worth the price in this regard. But then I started listening. I need to say, I read the forum here with all that prises, and my experience was totally the opposite really. Maybe they need to burn in? Anyway, this is what I heard. The Sound is really a "tiny bit" boomy in the mid-base, with DSP lifting a lot of echoes in the lower mids / mid-base, creating a full sound. To my ears, it was a bit overdone. As result, yes I did hear a lot of background sounds in this frequency, but the sound felt really 2d in terms of depth and artificial. I also felt like mentioned approach reduced the dynamic range a lot, making everything sound artificially equally loud but to me lifeless and a tiny bit dull. Don't get me wrong, I love a strong base, even elevated. In the IFI amp I use the base boost to make Clears slightly above Harman in the base region, but, it needs to be tasteful.XBA-Z5 are base monsters, love them, they are basehead's audiophile dream. But the PX8 base was bloated in this fresh pair I heard and it operates too high in freq response. The vocal range was on the other hand flattened and recessed, lacking energy a lot. It would work, but with much greater separation and detail provided. Maybe the iPhone 14pro/TIDAL was just a terrible source. The sound reminded me of the B&O Bluetooth speaker I heard recently, where the smooth and elegant presentation was trying to make it sound classy, elegant, and easy to pick all the frequencies. The gain of that is that it's super easy to listen to as a piece of background music, it's fun and rhythmically easy to follow. I played with EQ and could not get the vocals to sound more natural and separate them from the mix a little bit.
It was not a bad sound, no, it was super smooth and elegant yet some genres do not really have the right depth or sweetness in the voices. Say, listening to Ane Brum felt really not engaging, as her voice really felt mixed back with the background. App also felt really so-so, at best. It's on par with Focal & Naim App, both being poor to me.
Then I found measurements of PX8 and Basthys and felt like that perfectly mimicked what I heard with my ears. I am still considering PX8, as their use form factor is beyond amazing, but to my ears, they really do sound like BT Headphones with a bit of that extra classy smoothness in the presentation. Maybe they need to burn in a lot, but if not they are not - to my ears and this super short 1h session - on the same level as Bathys. They are though, much better ANC headphones for daily use.
Kuba