Hi!
I just bought the P7 yesterday. I had Momentum Wireless (AE) before and I wanted something better, different, and more bespoke
If I can offer my humble opinion and comparison
Positives:
1) Extremely well made, love the look, love the feel
2) Great sound, love the crisp highs (especially compared to Sennheisers). Bass is a bit overpowering at times but it doesn't compromise the rest of the sound at all. They feel much flatter compared to the Momentums except for the bass.
3) Phenomenal bluetooth reception. Momentums were already great, but the P7 have maybe twice the range. Audio dropouts don't happen until the very end of range while Momentum were cutting out ocassionaly when I was walking around my appartment.
4) Much more comfortable. They sit on the head more confidently and the earcups are actually able to go around my ears. Momentums made my ears hurt when I wore them for longer periods of time because my ears were rubbing the inside. I also listened to them until I fell asleep yesterday and when I woke up it was not because it felt uncomfortable.
5) (For me) a bit better bluetooth control. Momentums are probably a bit more sophisticated (voice feedback is great). but I like how P7s only connect to the primary device automatically and I can connect whatever second device I want. Since I use headphones with one computer, 2 iPhones and an iPad, it's usually a real PITA to connect what I am actually using - it means disconnecting whatever was connected and manually connecting the right device (since only 2 can be connected at the same time). I think the way P7 do this makes a lot of sense, although someone with only 2 devices might find the Momentum way more convenient.
Negatives:
1) (
Is this normal??) Hiss/noise when the bluetooth stream si active but nothing is playing. I think it's even worse than ANC noise on the Momentums and it's extremely distracting. You can forgive the Momentums because "it's the price you pay for ANC", and you get used to it after a while. But on the P7 it's intermittent since the stream goes idle after a while, then something kicks the audio stream in and it starts hissing only to stop a few seconds later. Annoying as hell. I just tried it with a cable from my old Macbook, and there's no audible hissing (I can hear the click after ~10 after audio is finished when it puts the output to sleep, but no hiss!). DAC in the headphones should blow the one in my Macbook out of the water.
Is this normal or is my piece faulty? This is my absolutely biggest problem with the headphones and something I'm not sure I can live with.
2) Wired connection. What's wrong with an external connector? How is this more convenient? I used to switch from wireless to wire from time to time. But on the P7 it's just too inconvenient, and if I were to do that daily I recon it would mechanically break in a year. I don't suspect them wanting to sell us cables, but it's just stupid.
3) The case. It's great quality and all, but just a bit too small even for the heaphones alone. Don't even think about putting anything else in here - like cables.
4) Automatic power off after 10 minutes. What the... Who thought that was a good idea? At least it doesn't take long to turn the headphones back on, but why should I have to do that 10 times a day? What's wrong with just staying on? Luckily, one can cheat by having some audio paused in the background, but then it comes back to 1) - constant hissing.
5) Some audio problems on my Mac, related to AAC. For example when playing a movie with VLC and then playing a song in iTunes, the audio from VLC switches off when iTunes isn't playing anymore. Reconnecting fixes this. A second problem with VLC - if headphones disconnect (like... after having something paused for 10 minutes!) the audio desyncs.
But I guess both of these problems have more to do with something on MacOS+AAC than the headphones themselves (never had there problems with Momentums though, but those use aptX)
I can't comment on battery life yet. My iPhone claims "100%" after ~8 hours, so that's a clear lie, but guesstimating from how long I charged them after use I don't think 17 hours is unrealistic. I actually play something only about 70% of the time when wearing them at work, though.
In the end: Yes. these headphones are somewhat superior to the Momentums, but some of the annoyances might be too much. I still have 13 days to return them if I want, and I'm actually considering that, which is sad because they are great in so many things. Some of these problems could be fixed with a firmware update (like the auto power off nonsense) or possibly controlled from (supposedly coming?) iOS app. But the background noise...! I don't know whether I can endure that. This was one of the reasons I wanted something without ANC or where it can be disabled.
Can someone please confirm whether this happens on all of them? Or is my piece faulty?