AndreRitter
100+ Head-Fier
I don't need or want ANC. I'm using hear through just to get liveable sound.
Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 and Pi6 True Wireless Earbuds
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AndreRitter
100+ Head-Fier
No duh. Exactly my point. I want more bass without ANC and the eq won't do it.
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psawjack
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What is your source?
After my Sennheiser Momentum TWS 3 broke (did not charge any more, I was looking for another wireless earbud and came across the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 at HiFi Klubben. When trying this earphone with my FiiO M11 Plus Ltd. for the first time, I was already impressed just by the sound. Before I had the wireless earphones Sony WF 1000 XM4 and the aforementioned Sennheiser Momentum TWS 3. Both were purchased during the pandemic, so no store allowed to try it in term of sound and comfort.
The Pi8 is in terms of sound and comfort miles ahead of the two. Especially the Sony is simply to big for my ears.
Before buying the Pi8 I took the opportunity to compare the Pi8 with the available competitors: Denon Pearl Pro and the Sennheiser Momentum TWS 4. The Pi8 is the clear winner.
The Pi8 has a comparably big dynamic, sounds power full and very well balanced. The bass, mids and treble are well separated, so these are very clean audiophile-like earphones. I own the Sennheiser IE-900, the B&W PX8 and the Dali IO-12 and the Pi8 can cope well with them. The IE-900 is more analytical, sometimes to sibilant in the trebles, the Dali a little more powerful and of course better sealed, but the Pi8 is a big joy to listen. I mostly listen classical music and jazz, and as such, I prefere rather delicate than overwhelming bass, the Pi8 does very well here. The trebles are very well controlled, almost never sibilant or tiring. Bass does not interfere with the mids, and instruments are well separated. Soundstage is much better that with the other tested earphones.
The Denon Pearl Pro needed some initial acoustic adjustment to my ears via its app, but that resulted only in exaggerated bass burst instead of clean sound. I disabled this feature, but the sound did not reach the clarity of the Pi8. The large size of the Denon’s corpus, disturbed me a bit, but wearing was not too uncomfortable.
The Sennheiser Momentum TWS 4 turned out to be nice sounding, better than the Denon Pearl Pro, but was not as dynamic and clean as the PI8. Wearing comfort was little better than the Pi8, so I was undecided, if I buy the Sennheiser or the Pi8, but in the end the sound quality gave me clearly the edge towards the Pi8.
The wearing comfort of the Pi8 is despite of not quite reaching the Sennheiser TWS 4 still very good, because it is small enough to fit my ears.
Ear Tips: At the beginning, I wasn’t too happy with the original ear tips, so I was looking for alternatives, which fit with the Pi8. I purchased the Comply TW-170-A foam ear tips in M and S size and the SpinFit OMNi in MS size. The TW-170-A is the only one , specifically designated for the Pi8. Both the Comply and the SpinFit ear tips were considerably more difficult to put on the Pi8’s nozzles, with the SpinFit to be worst, but still manageable.
I was surprised that the Comply foam tips had by far clearly the least comfort of all, when thy expanded again in the ear channel. Of course, they provided better seal, but this is not enough to overcome the bad comfort. The sound quality did not improve at all, in fact, the Pi8 lost some of its clarity, had bass and mids interefere more an with the S Size trebbles become harsh, where the original ear tips had this under control. The SpinFit OMNI is more comfortable but cannot deliver the nice bass of the original tips and also trebbles are harsher. The interference of bass and mids is less than on the Comply foam tips.
So, apparently, Bowers & Wilkins did also a very good job in designing the accompanying ear tips, which are much better than the others I tried. For my ear size the M size give the best sound and comfort.
The ANC isn’t really good, that is the feature I am mostly disappointed with, especially for the high price. However the ANC of the competitors were not significantly better, I tried all of them outside the Klubben shop in various traffic situations. The physical sealing of such ear phones isn’t enough to be ANC an effective as I would wish. As such I am surprised that some reviewers describe the ANC of the Pi8 as good.
The battery life is not the best, but since I do not listen to music for hours without pause, it isn’t that important.
The app is at first glance a little poor in function, however, after the experience with the Denon Pearl Pro, I wonder, if less is better. The fancy boosts and sound analytical enhancements often are not better for my musical taste, als they obviously are targeted for the bass and surround sound lovers, which I am not. As most recocording differ a lot in sound characteristic, I question, if named equalizer profiles really work practically. It is quite easy to adjust the equalizer for a particular album or quickly switch back to the neutral True Sound status. The sound of the Pi8 is generally so well balanced that I do not feel need to switch between equalizer profiles very strongly. So I don’t have a problem with the lack of customization here, However, it is a pitty that I can’t a adjust the touch functions of the Pi8 more freely,
I have two issues with the Pi8. The first is that the app often does not recognize the Pi8 quickly enough or at all, in which case I need to restart the app. This issue already exists with my Px8, so apparently Bowers & Wilkins do not bother to fix this. The second issue is the finish of the case. It is simply to rounded and slippery, It too easily slides out of one’s hand and is the reason that I am already with my second Pi8. Last week I lost my first Pi8 as the case slipped out of my pant pocket, which I did not recognize. So I purchased another Pi8. The first one was black, the second blue, I prefer blue color, finally. So pay attention that you don’t loose accidentally. The case, despite its elegance and beauty, is rather a design fault. I prefer much more the Sennheiser brick-like case with a rougher textile surface. I wonder, if designers properly test their product at all, because the “slippiness” of the case is immediately evident. If I would not have been so impressed by the sound clarity of the Pi8, I would not have purchased a second one.
In my interpretation the Pi8’s design priorities are clearly the sound quality and characteristics, which are ahead of the competition. It could well be that this lead to compromises in battery life and ANC components as there are size constraints in such small ear phone bodies. However, they could have made the charging case larger to have more battery capacity. The case to me follows the wrong design trends of small size and smooth surfaces, which have obvious disadvantages.
In summary, I am very happy with the Pi8, despite the bad experience of loss due to the slippery case. It is the best wireless in ear headphone, I had and tried so far, by a large margin and this outweighs the annoyances by far. Listening to music on travel with the Pi8 is big fun and joy.
The Pi8 is in terms of sound and comfort miles ahead of the two. Especially the Sony is simply to big for my ears.
Before buying the Pi8 I took the opportunity to compare the Pi8 with the available competitors: Denon Pearl Pro and the Sennheiser Momentum TWS 4. The Pi8 is the clear winner.
The Pi8 has a comparably big dynamic, sounds power full and very well balanced. The bass, mids and treble are well separated, so these are very clean audiophile-like earphones. I own the Sennheiser IE-900, the B&W PX8 and the Dali IO-12 and the Pi8 can cope well with them. The IE-900 is more analytical, sometimes to sibilant in the trebles, the Dali a little more powerful and of course better sealed, but the Pi8 is a big joy to listen. I mostly listen classical music and jazz, and as such, I prefere rather delicate than overwhelming bass, the Pi8 does very well here. The trebles are very well controlled, almost never sibilant or tiring. Bass does not interfere with the mids, and instruments are well separated. Soundstage is much better that with the other tested earphones.
The Denon Pearl Pro needed some initial acoustic adjustment to my ears via its app, but that resulted only in exaggerated bass burst instead of clean sound. I disabled this feature, but the sound did not reach the clarity of the Pi8. The large size of the Denon’s corpus, disturbed me a bit, but wearing was not too uncomfortable.
The Sennheiser Momentum TWS 4 turned out to be nice sounding, better than the Denon Pearl Pro, but was not as dynamic and clean as the PI8. Wearing comfort was little better than the Pi8, so I was undecided, if I buy the Sennheiser or the Pi8, but in the end the sound quality gave me clearly the edge towards the Pi8.
The wearing comfort of the Pi8 is despite of not quite reaching the Sennheiser TWS 4 still very good, because it is small enough to fit my ears.
Ear Tips: At the beginning, I wasn’t too happy with the original ear tips, so I was looking for alternatives, which fit with the Pi8. I purchased the Comply TW-170-A foam ear tips in M and S size and the SpinFit OMNi in MS size. The TW-170-A is the only one , specifically designated for the Pi8. Both the Comply and the SpinFit ear tips were considerably more difficult to put on the Pi8’s nozzles, with the SpinFit to be worst, but still manageable.
I was surprised that the Comply foam tips had by far clearly the least comfort of all, when thy expanded again in the ear channel. Of course, they provided better seal, but this is not enough to overcome the bad comfort. The sound quality did not improve at all, in fact, the Pi8 lost some of its clarity, had bass and mids interefere more an with the S Size trebbles become harsh, where the original ear tips had this under control. The SpinFit OMNI is more comfortable but cannot deliver the nice bass of the original tips and also trebbles are harsher. The interference of bass and mids is less than on the Comply foam tips.
So, apparently, Bowers & Wilkins did also a very good job in designing the accompanying ear tips, which are much better than the others I tried. For my ear size the M size give the best sound and comfort.
The ANC isn’t really good, that is the feature I am mostly disappointed with, especially for the high price. However the ANC of the competitors were not significantly better, I tried all of them outside the Klubben shop in various traffic situations. The physical sealing of such ear phones isn’t enough to be ANC an effective as I would wish. As such I am surprised that some reviewers describe the ANC of the Pi8 as good.
The battery life is not the best, but since I do not listen to music for hours without pause, it isn’t that important.
The app is at first glance a little poor in function, however, after the experience with the Denon Pearl Pro, I wonder, if less is better. The fancy boosts and sound analytical enhancements often are not better for my musical taste, als they obviously are targeted for the bass and surround sound lovers, which I am not. As most recocording differ a lot in sound characteristic, I question, if named equalizer profiles really work practically. It is quite easy to adjust the equalizer for a particular album or quickly switch back to the neutral True Sound status. The sound of the Pi8 is generally so well balanced that I do not feel need to switch between equalizer profiles very strongly. So I don’t have a problem with the lack of customization here, However, it is a pitty that I can’t a adjust the touch functions of the Pi8 more freely,
I have two issues with the Pi8. The first is that the app often does not recognize the Pi8 quickly enough or at all, in which case I need to restart the app. This issue already exists with my Px8, so apparently Bowers & Wilkins do not bother to fix this. The second issue is the finish of the case. It is simply to rounded and slippery, It too easily slides out of one’s hand and is the reason that I am already with my second Pi8. Last week I lost my first Pi8 as the case slipped out of my pant pocket, which I did not recognize. So I purchased another Pi8. The first one was black, the second blue, I prefer blue color, finally. So pay attention that you don’t loose accidentally. The case, despite its elegance and beauty, is rather a design fault. I prefer much more the Sennheiser brick-like case with a rougher textile surface. I wonder, if designers properly test their product at all, because the “slippiness” of the case is immediately evident. If I would not have been so impressed by the sound clarity of the Pi8, I would not have purchased a second one.
In my interpretation the Pi8’s design priorities are clearly the sound quality and characteristics, which are ahead of the competition. It could well be that this lead to compromises in battery life and ANC components as there are size constraints in such small ear phone bodies. However, they could have made the charging case larger to have more battery capacity. The case to me follows the wrong design trends of small size and smooth surfaces, which have obvious disadvantages.
In summary, I am very happy with the Pi8, despite the bad experience of loss due to the slippery case. It is the best wireless in ear headphone, I had and tried so far, by a large margin and this outweighs the annoyances by far. Listening to music on travel with the Pi8 is big fun and joy.
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I had the same experience. Spent about 10 hours on planes earlier this week and the ANC was better than I expected at drowning out the low frequency noise. Enjoyed using them on the plane, especially after my Px8s started making my ears hot.
AndreRitter
100+ Head-Fier
Oooh! Seems they may have taken longer to loosen up than the WF1000-XM5 and CFA Orbit did.
*Edit* Or was I just pushing the right bud too deep? Just had a panic attack after I took it out and reinserted it only to discover the sound was awful again.
I now have the depth of bass I want without any ANC or hear through on.
I'm now getting the full experience and these are trouncing the aforementioned duo easily.
Sign me up to board that old hype train!
*Edit* Or was I just pushing the right bud too deep? Just had a panic attack after I took it out and reinserted it only to discover the sound was awful again.
I now have the depth of bass I want without any ANC or hear through on.
I'm now getting the full experience and these are trouncing the aforementioned duo easily.
Sign me up to board that old hype train!
Last edited:
disastermouse
Headphoneus Supremus
I’d pushed them in too far and the bass wasn’t right. Wrong tip size.
So it really could have been that.
msooffutt
100+ Head-Fier
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Yeah, I’ve found that the pi8s sound terrible with the wrong tips. So far only the medium sized stock tips sound good in my ears. I’ve tried spiral dots and crystals and the low end disappears and the high end sounds robotic and awful. The only earbuds I’ve owned that are this picky with eartips.
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AndreRitter
100+ Head-Fier
Good to know, thank you.
I was already thinking it's a shame the nozzles are such a picky fit for tips.
Would you like to swap your large for my medium?
PaulGrinny
Head-Fier
I have been checking , mine are always in
ryanmatic
500+ Head-Fier
Mine always reverts to OFF after connecting, not sure why. I've left the EQ flat anyway so I suppose it's not a big deal.
msooffutt
100+ Head-Fier
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I haven’t decided yet, but I might return them. I’ve had some connections issues and just general issues with the app and instead of hoping for a fix via software, I think I’ll return them and maybe rebuy them at a later date once the kinks are ironed out. I’ve had to learn the hard way to assume a manufacturer will fix all of their issues.
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How reliable are B&W in ears nowadays? I had some Pi3s that died after 18 months that they replaced with Pi4s and those also died after about 6 months. Moved to the Sony XM4s after that
Tempted to see what Prime Day deals there are on the Pi8s this week
Tempted to see what Prime Day deals there are on the Pi8s this week
AndreRitter
100+ Head-Fier
I'm possibly buying a second pair if the deals are available. Also probably selling my WFK-XM5 as they can't touch the Pi8.
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