[TellyBoi]

After some months with B&W P7W I have to say I am more and more impressed. Probably my ears got used to the sound and now start to navigate more into the unknown of these great headphones' signature. Mids pop out more, electric guitars have more power especially; bass is less prominent.

Still, I remember when I went to shop and tried all the other wireless options in this price range.
Momentums were showing strange distorted instruments here and there, probably because of always-on noise cancelling. They where unbearable for my ears, and sounded also simple, no soundstage and no life. Cheap looks and weight.

Sony MDR1000x - well, it sounded maybe better but no bass, literally; also lots of fuss with many settings that are useless. Treble was totally distorted, couldn't bear it; put some old school Tiesto trance or black metal and you are dead.

B&O H7. H8, H9. - I went especially to a Bang and Olufsen shop to try these. Construction and design felt of higher quality than Senns of Sony. Put them on, and for sure they had more mids with greater depth and detail. But the treble, what was that? Fully muffled. Probably they need burn-in or those were bad? Anyway, let the shop unimpressed for the price, all the models have this same signature where treble was muffled.

Another model that I do not see on many forums:

Bose Soundlink 2 wireless - I listened to them by mistake in a shop just to see how they sound compared to muffled problematic bose qc35. Wow. Definitely these are the best wireless headphones I tried at around 200 dollars/euro. Maybe I wouldn't even go for the P7W if I knew. Compare to P7W, they lack some bass but the rest of the sound range is immaculate, construction quality is just ok and design is me.

About the P7W - try to put a thin cloth between speaker and the pad on each side. It makes them sound a bit more airy and less bassy. Make it really thin so that the pad does not move and the plastic pieces that hold the pads don't break(see image).

I was debating between getting the H8 initially before I chanced on the P7 being offered to me as well. with no hesitation, I quickly jumped the gun on the P7 eventhough the H8 has wireless function. the H8 is nice depending on what genre it is made for, but overall, the P7 is mostly an all-arounder. also, loved it's signature better than the H8. if someone is looking for a balanced headphone, there are some cheaper options out there, but personally, that is not what I'm looking for.

 

[zviratko]

Both the Sony and B&O H9 (and I guess H8 will be similiar) have a good but unnatural sound, it's the electronics doing tricks, not good drivers. And the electronics in the Sony are utter crap when it comes to anything dynamic - it distorts. Beoplay were much much better, with weaker but still good ANC (surprisingly not a lot of noise from it), and great bass extension - they even went much lower than the P7W. But they suffer from the "loudness" syndome as well where everything gets compressed and the dynamic parts sound awful.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Regarding the iPad Pro discussion. Yes, unless some new principle of physics is at play, there is no reason why it would sound different. That said, I am not an expert in these areas so could the quality of the BT transmission be at all effected by the chipset? If so, perhaps that could explain any perceived differences, but even in saying that, I can't imagine this really being audible even if it is possible. I would think that issues with the transmission would involve interruptions, dropped connections, loss of range, but a change in sound quality? I have to say I would be leaning toward thinking this is better explained through expectation bias. I think we all like to deny it, myself included, but we do indeed have a pretty deeply entrenched belief that more expensive will mean better quality. This assumption was at least partially formed and founded with a solid basis to believe it. In many things more expensive does yield better quality so it isn't hard to see why we apply this expectation filter almost universally.

 

[richpjr]

It has nothing to do with price. On the iPhone 6S it sounds more V-shaped with harsher treble.

On the 12.9 iPad Pro it sounds smoother and treble isn't that harsh.

I'm guessing the smiley meant he was joking about the price...

And while I am guessing, I'd guess it could be a different (newer?) bluetooth chip in the iPad vs the iPhone.

 

[Slaphead]

Regarding the iPad Pro discussion. Yes, unless some new principle of physics is at play, there is no reason why it would sound different. That said, I am not an expert in these areas so could the quality of the BT transmission be at all effected by the chipset? If so, perhaps that could explain any perceived differences, but even in saying that, I can't imagine this really being audible even if it is possible. I would think that issues with the transmission would involve interruptions, dropped connections, loss of range, but a change in sound quality? I have to say I would be leaning toward thinking this is better explained through expectation bias. I think we all like to deny it, myself included, but we do indeed have a pretty deeply entrenched belief that more expensive will mean better quality. This assumption was at least partially formed and founded with a solid basis to believe it. In many things more expensive does yield better quality so it isn't hard to see why we apply this expectation filter almost universally.

Well there are 3 reasons that I can think of that don't require a new principle of physics.

1) BT Chipset as already mentioned. It could be that the iPad pro has an improved and more fault tolerant BT chipset allowing for a faster sustained data rate, meaning the ability to negotiate a faster link speed, which in turn leads to less aggressive compression and an avoidance of having to use the SBC protocol.

2) An iPhone is very constrained in terms of space, meaning the placement of and type of antennae may not be optimal and therefore leading to loss of range and data rate compared to the iPad, which has plenty of space for an optimal antennae configuration. The combination of this and point 1 could lead to a very significant improvement of the connection reliability.

3) Whatever processing Core Audio is doing before sending the data. You'd think it would be the same for all iToys, however it doesn't always appear to be. As an example I have an iPod Nano 7th gen, which in comparison to my iPod Touch 6th gen sounds congested, and overall far less dynamic. This isn't expectation bias, this would be obvious to anybody. Initially I thought it was just an inferior DAC/Amp in the nano, but crazily this congestion and lack of dynamics carries over when using a BT connection, so there's something going on which is changing the signal before it's being transmitted.

 

[zviratko]

1) Chipset won't make a difference unless it uses a different codec, it will at worst run AAC with P7W
2) Antennas have nothing to do with that unless you're at the edge of transmission range and then you'd hear it drop out if it happened
3) CoreAudio framework is the same on all iOS devices (and shared to an extent with macOS as well) - again, no difference,.

The most plausible explanations to me
1) placebo effect, because it's pricey
2) Apple implemented aptX

 

[GregBe]

Just picked up a pair over the weekend, and really love them. Great full sound. I do have two questions for those who might know (sorry if they have been asked before)

1) Can these be charged with a wall charger, like a phone or tablet charger without any damage or additional wear on the P7s?
2) I know, that nobody has a crystal ball, but is there any idea on the longevity of the battery? What happens if/when the battery no longer holds a charge...can it be replaced, or does this become a wired headphone at that point?

Thanks in advance!
Greg

 

[xaznxeclipsex]

Does anyone have issues where they get static on the right headphone?

 

[Tubakien]

Just picked up a pair over the weekend, and really love them. Great full sound. I do have two questions for those who might know (sorry if they have been asked before)

1) Can these be charged with a wall charger, like a phone or tablet charger without any damage or additional wear on the P7s?
2) I know, that nobody has a crystal ball, but is there any idea on the longevity of the battery? What happens if/when the battery no longer holds a charge...can it be replaced, or does this become a wired headphone at that point?

Thanks in advance!
Greg

2) I think there is a post someone in this thread where the person contacted B&W and received a reply that said that we would have to either ship them the headphones for battery replacement or to find an authorized retailer to perform the work. It kind of sucks, but I have owned a pair of BT headphones (Creative WP-380) for ~4 years and the headband broke before I even noticed a dip in battery life.

The only other headphones that I've previewed in the similar price range are the B&O H7 and H9. They have removable batteries, but have a much different sound that the P7s. I would say they are suited for live, vocal, mic'd music whereas the P7 wireless excels at more heavily produced music (Electronic, pop, rap). The B&O also have issues though...price and max volume are two that come to mind.

 

[Sonic Defender]

2) I think there is a post someone in this thread where the person contacted B&W and received a reply that said that we would have to either ship them the headphones for battery replacement or to find an authorized retailer to perform the work. It kind of sucks, but I have owned a pair of BT headphones (Creative WP-380) for ~4 years and the headband broke before I even noticed a dip in battery life.

The only other headphones that I've previewed in the similar price range are the B&O H7 and H9. They have removable batteries, but have a much different sound that the P7s. I would say they are suited for live, vocal, mic'd music whereas the P7 wireless excels at more heavily produced music (Electronic, pop, rap). The B&O also have issues though...price and max volume are two that come to mind.

I would agree, I owned the H7 and very much liked it, loved the replaceable battery, but the max volume for me wasn't high enough. I owned and loved the P7 wireless, and I also concur that for really studio focused material they really shine. I happen to like a lot of electronica and the P7 really nails it. It isn't that the H7 wasn't very good with those genres, it was, but the P7 was more tuned I feel for that style of music. That was an astute observation of you to make.

 

[zviratko]

Does anyone have issues where they get static on the right headphone?

Just the right? There's some noise on both when they are active (something is playing, even a silence) and that's normal. If you get it only in one then that's not normal.

Batteries in modern electronics (especially low-drain ones) should last at least a 1000 cycles. If the battery change is for reasonable price ($50) then I have no issues with it being non-removable, if it were to cost $100 then I'd consider servicing it myself - the battery itself will be standard to an extent. When Li-Ion batteries die they just lower their capacity, so I don't think you have to worry about that much - even when it wears out after few years it should still last a day.

 

[SergioLeone]

Ordered my pair today, waiting to test. These will be my first pair of headphones above 50$ so I think I should be impressed with them, especially taking into account numerous positive things people are saying about em

Is there a minimum temperature level below which it's not advisable to use them? Can anything happen to them on cold (below zero Centigrade) apart from battery being drained faster?

And one more question, at least for time being Will I have a significant sound quality increase with a portable DAC/amp?

 

[zviratko]

Ordered my pair today, waiting to test. These will be my first pair of headphones above 50$ so I think I should be impressed with them, especially taking into account numerous positive things people are saying about em

Is there a minimum temperature level below which it's not advisable to use them? Can anything happen to them on cold (below zero Centigrade) apart from battery being drained faster?

Not much really, but I wouldn't leave them laying directly in freezing cold - if you have them around the neck you should be fine.
But beware of condensation, if you then go inside where there's very warm and moist, that can kill electronics, so don't shock them like that.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Ordered my pair today, waiting to test. These will be my first pair of headphones above 50$ so I think I should be impressed with them, especially taking into account numerous positive things people are saying about em

Is there a minimum temperature level below which it's not advisable to use them? Can anything happen to them on cold (below zero Centigrade) apart from battery being drained faster?

And one more question, at least for time being Will I have a significant sound quality increase with a portable DAC/amp?

As mentioned above, it is the condensation forming from warm to cold that would concern me. I live in Ottawa which gets long, hard, cold winters and I owned my P7 wireless during a winter with no issues. I just tried to be sure that if I was coming inside from the cold with them that I didn't put them in a place where they wouldn't air dry quickly if there was condensation. Airflow is the key so don't stick them in a bag. I tried to follow this principle even in the heat so if there was any perspiration that it wouldn't get trapped.

 

[TJ Max]

how easy is it to switch from one wireless source to another? Does it tell you which device you are connected to?