AcademicBarzo
100+ Head-Fier
That is a bummer. B&W are making some strange usability decisions these days - I can see no obvious reason why ambient mode cannot be enabled as one of the settings on the Pi7/S2 when engaging noise cancelling (which currently cycles through off, on and adaptive). Similarly, it makes little sense on the PX7 S2 and PX8 that one has to choose between either triggering noise cancelling/ambient modes or voice assistant with the one designated button on the left ear cup - why not program a short press or multiple press to allow both? It used to be that a long press of the multifunction button on the right earcup (on the PX7) engaged the default voice assistant of the connected device - a feature removed from these headphones.I was looking through the manual for the PI7 S2 on B & W website and saw this:
3.3 Ambient Pass-Through Pi7 S2 features Ambient Pass-Through, which allows some external noise from the surrounding environment, such as safety announcements or conversations, to be heard without removing the earbuds. Use the Bowers & Wilkins Music app to enable/ disable Ambient Pass-Through and adjust the Ambient Pass-Through level to suit your needs.
Sadly we still won't be able to switch on Ambient Pass-Through from the buds. That's kind of a deal breaker for me. I love my Pi7 v1s even with the quarks. Not seeing much right now that makes me want to pull the trigger on the S2 outside of the 30% discount.
My biggest gripe with B&W headphones it there appears to be little firmware or software support for products. Fingers crossed this is changing with the latest range, but no signs of it so far.
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