[davidhunternyc]

FYI, I am trialling B&W PX vs B&O H9, and have posted a set of notes in the H9 thread at article #665.
At the time of writing I think the B&O will win (for me - others will have different priorities) ... but I'm not completely decided so thoughts welcomed before I return the unselected ones.

Can you share with us your comparative thoughts? Just reading this thread it seems as if the B&W PX has too many connection problems.

 

[anonymess]

Can you share with us your comparative thoughts?

Um, I have done so already, at length - see article 665 in the linked thread above. No point in doing it in two threads I think.

 

[keniutek]

^ Great insight man, appreciated. Did not have a chance to try H9 but sounds like they might be more than worth a try.

 

[archagon]

Something weird I noticed: if you're connected to two devices, apparently the device you connected to first has some sort of special status. If I connect to my phone and then my laptop, any music I play on my laptop always gets interrupted whenever I wake up my phone. But if I connect to my laptop and then my phone, I can wake up my phone without interrupting my music. I can also receive notifications without any disruptions — the ding simply does not play. I guess the "secondary" device requires direct user input in order to pause the "primary" device's audio session? How the heck does this work under the hood?

 

[hawk10eye]

@Forum, can anyone comment on the comfort level while wearing ... I wear glasses and i'm worried about the comfort, can anyone wearing glasses comment how comfortable are these and in general how comfortable are these for 1+ hr continuous use daily

 

[brokenhat]

I wear glasses and with them on or off these get very uncomfortable very quickly. Also if your glasses arms cause the seal to be broken the sound goes way downhill. Mine aren't bad, the arms are close to my head so I just need to place them on a bit more carefully then all good. When I see 5 star reviews (What HiFi), I wonder if they actually wore them during the testing? Most uncomfortable headphones I've ever warn.

 

[wildpanda86]

I wear glasses and with them on or off these get very uncomfortable very quickly. Also if your glasses arms cause the seal to be broken the sound goes way downhill. Mine aren't bad, the arms are close to my head so I just need to place them on a bit more carefully then all good. When I see 5 star reviews (What HiFi), I wonder if they actually wore them during the testing? Most uncomfortable headphones I've ever warn.

I wear mine with glasses and sunglasses if I am out and about. My eyeglasses have pretty thin ear pieces so they don’t cause too much issue. My sunglasses on the other hand are Oakley’s with thick ear pieces. When I put the headphones on, I don’t slide them on. Instead I sit one cup over one hear then slightly pull the other cup wide and directly land them over the other ear. That way it creates as best a seal it can. If I slide them on it seames the stretch the ear cup so it doesnt create a good seal. Also if I slide them on it will push part of my ear between the seal and my head which also affects the sound. But If I place it so my ear is completely inside the cup then it works great.

That being said, I think the varied reviews on these headphones have more to do with variations in everyones heads/ ear shapes/ eye wear. If you ear is too big the cup will sit on the ear rather than over the ear affecting sound.

To remedy this I bet the ear cups can be modded by installing larger pads. I’ve seen people mod P5 pads with P7 pads which improve the sound. Maybe can mod the PX with P9 pads? Or some other aftermarket pad?... just need seperate the leather from the magnetic ring and glue new leather cups in place. I wonder if B&W expiremented with using optional different size ear cups... larger ones for big ears and on ear cups or more moldable cups if you have eyewear.

Overall I am pretty happy with them... they sound great for me. However I do think my wired P7’s with a dragonfly red amplifier does have an edge in sound quality. I think the combination with the exagerated bass characteristics of the P7 amped with a dragonlfy red helps to control that bassy nature and make it sound very natural and lively.

 

[Jazz1]

@Forum, can anyone comment on the comfort level while wearing ... I wear glasses and i'm worried about the comfort, can anyone wearing glasses comment how comfortable are these and in general how comfortable are these for 1+ hr continuous use daily

The the left and right temple pieces on my glasses are flat metal. I imagine the different brands of glasses, all with different shapes might make a difference. I'm not having any seal issues with my particular glasses. I've found placing the headphone headband a little more forward than usual gives me a good seal. Going too far back or too far forward does break the seal in my experience. When that happens sound quality suffers to the extent that I realize it right away and make an adjustment. Once adjusted I don't lose the seal sitting or walking. I hope this helps. I love these cans, but I'm not going to duct tape them to my head for a good seal

 

[Quequacio96]

Hi guys, I could buy these px at € 340 in a store where I tried them this morning. I liked a lot but I still have the doubt with the momentum 2.0 wireless (I use Android so I will not miss the AAC (the wired version I liked a lot), what is your advice?

 

[hawk10eye]

The the left and right temple pieces on my glasses are flat metal. I imagine the different brands of glasses, all with different shapes might make a difference. I'm not having any seal issues with my particular glasses. I've found placing the headphone headband a little more forward than usual gives me a good seal. Going too far back or too far forward does break the seal in my experience. When that happens sound quality suffers to the extent that I realize it right away and make an adjustment. Once adjusted I don't lose the seal sitting or walking. I hope this helps. I love these cans, but I'm not going to duct tape them to my head for a good seal

Tried this in near by store (did get a chance to hear it) , they fit well with me glasses on but they are heavy ,can clearly feel them on my head.. QC35II and Sony 1000XM2 felt like a feather..however sony had worst build and bose are good..PX had the best build of all three.. tomorrow will go back and try again hopefully this time they fixed the cable connecting the headphone

 

[Jazz1]

What kind of issue did you have?

 

[archagon]

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't decided yet. However, I'm likely going to be keeping the PX. It feels like an entirely different class of headphone from a SQ perspective (with ANC off) and the tech is really interesting. In comparing to my old MDR-1RBT, it's also better in pretty much every respect. But — it also has sooooo many technical quirks! The 2-minute shutoff when the wear sensor is disabled, the auto-resuming even after you've manually paused the music, the noise on the aux line, the flaky implementation of multi-device connectivity... makes me worried that they'll save all the improvements for PX 2.0 and only give the early adopters tiny incremental updates. Already, B&W support has sort of waved me off on Twitter.

As a purist, it also bothers me that this is no longer a "real" headphone, in the sense that all the circuitry, amplification, etc. is already baked in. There's no way to use it as an analog instrument. Meanwhile, the Crossfade excels as a wired headphone. Oh well. Tradeoffs...

If anyone is interested, I've added an update to my article. I'm keeping the Crossfade. The PX has a really great sound, but the tech is driving me crazy. My last straw was getting LOUD hissing and crackling through the 3.5mm port while gaming with an eGPU. I tried direct USB mode, but it added about 30-40ms of latency. It feels like I'm working around a thousand tiny problems when using these things!

 

[Shizmoo]

New to high end gear and was wondering if its worth getting the Dragonfly black or red? Is there a noticeable difference in quality when used with the PX?

 

[wildpanda86]

New to high end gear and was wondering if its worth getting the Dragonfly black or red? Is there a noticeable difference in quality when used with the PX?

Not worth it with the PX... it will degrade the sound

 

[BigBobbie87]

If anyone is interested, I've added an update to my article. I'm keeping the Crossfade. The PX has a really great sound, but the tech is driving me crazy. My last straw was getting LOUD hissing and crackling through the 3.5mm port while gaming with an eGPU. I tried direct USB mode, but it added about 30-40ms of latency. It feels like I'm working around a thousand tiny problems when using these things!

The hissing you were hearing is the fault of your PC. You will hear it with any headphones, but it is slightly amplified with the PX. It's caused by poor grounding in your computer. If you plug into the aux of another device (phone, iPod) you won't hear it.