[edsjo]

Today I accidentally tested the excellent BT range. I forgot my phone on the train and walked out listening to music (streaming from the phone). It wasn't until I was outside the train and had started walking on the platform that I realized I didn't have my phone with me. I ran back inside and fortunately the phone was still there on my seat. The music continued playing all the time without a single interruption. Quite impressive, even if I of course at this instant would have wanted to be warned about my missing phone earlier....

 

[BigBobbie87]

Today I accidentally tested the excellent BT range. I forgot my phone on the train and walked out listening to music (streaming from the phone). It wasn't until I was outside the train and had started walking on the platform that I realized I didn't have my phone with me. I ran back inside and fortunately the phone was still there on my seat. The music continued playing all the time without a single interruption. Quite impressive, even if I of course at this instant would have wanted to be warned about my missing phone earlier....

How do you find the connection in urban areas (around tall buildings, public transit vehicles, busy streets)? Does the connection ever break or pop when you're walking?

 

[mclay]

not once for me, and I absolutely understand the issue, as an owner of the Bragi Dash buds

 

[GrussGott]

How do you find the connection in urban areas (around tall buildings, public transit vehicles, busy streets)? Does the connection ever break or pop when you're walking?

I can't speak for the PX, but I have the P7w and I live in a downtown urban area in a building with 100s of wifi and bluetooth devices not to mention all the ones that go walking by and all of the other EMF (and water pipes) all around me.

On the P7s, the bluetooth behavior is absolutely the best of any device I've ever used. It connects instantly and holds the connection over long distances. I don't what they did, but it's order of magnitude better than my other headphones, including Bose which has about the most annoying and shiity implementation I've used. It's constantly losing my connection to my 2nd device and then interrupting my active session to tell me it lost the connection or it just reacquired it. Bose is worst.

 

[edsjo]

How do you find the connection in urban areas (around tall buildings, public transit vehicles, busy streets)? Does the connection ever break or pop when you're walking?

It stays connected without any pops or disconnects. The connection is very stable both on trains, walking around downtown and at the office. I use an iPhone 6s so it should connect over aac in case it matters.

 

[BigBobbie87]

It stays connected without any pops or disconnects. The connection is very stable both on trains, walking around downtown and at the office. I use an iPhone 6s so it should connect over aac in case it matters.

I can't speak for the PX, but I have the P7w and I live in a downtown urban area in a building with 100s of wifi and bluetooth devices not to mention all the ones that go walking by and all of the other EMF (and water pipes) all around me.

On the P7s, the bluetooth behavior is absolutely the best of any device I've ever used. It connects instantly and holds the connection over long distances. I don't what they did, but it's order of magnitude better than my other headphones, including Bose which has about the most annoying and shiity implementation I've used. It's constantly losing my connection to my 2nd device and then interrupting my active session to tell me it lost the connection or it just reacquired it. Bose is worst.

not once for me, and I absolutely understand the issue, as an owner of the Bragi Dash buds

Really great to hear. I'm hoping I have the same luck with the pair I get. I previously picked up the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless, and they'd be unusable around condo towers or on busy streets. Even though they sounded great, I sent them back because I couldn't use them on my commute. The PXs can't come back in stock soon enough!

 

[wildpanda86]

I want to add a few observations after using these for a few weeks.

1) the ANC is just filtering the sound. Office setting sounds like having the ANC off except it will artificially amplify voices. City setting doesn't seem to cancel out much sound at all... just the lower frequencies while amplifying the high frequencies. City mode sounds more like wearing open back headphones while walking about in the city. I guess the idea is to increase situational awareness in city mode, but not really filter noise out. Airplane mode is most aggressive however at a recent convention I was at, voices where still coming through... maybe designed that way to be able to hear the flight attendants or announcements. I hope on the firmware update they add more settings that are just general noise cancelling settings rather than active filtering of certain frequencies for certain situations.

2) doing A-B comparisons with my P7 wired + dragonfly red... before I said the PX keeps up pretty well. However I do notice some differences. The PX has a wider soundstage however sounds more like a wide wall of sound. Whereas the P7's + dragonfly seem to have more "air" between the instruments making the P7's + dragonfly sound more 3 dimensional. I'd even dare say my P7's + dragonfly sound very similar to my home theater setup consisting of 683 towers, dual subs, and rotel separates. Probably because the dragonfly red uses ESS Sabre DACS just like my Rotel receiver. My ears don't have to adjust between my home theater setup and the P7's. Whereas with the PX there's 30 sec or so of adjustment then it sounds good to me. The PX probably doesn't use anything close to ESS Sabre DACS to save money but I bet they'd sound great if they did.
3) the Bluetooth functionality + overall good sound makes me grab the PX more over my P7's... so nice to be able to move around the house untethered and without wires getting in the way.

That being said I'll probably still keep my P7's + dragonfly red for use on the desktop computer... they do edge out the PC.

I'll try out my P7's with my Astell & Kern XB10 Bluetooth dac/amp device this week and see how it compares.

 

[rabass6]

There is something I don't like about these HP: they have such a warm and appealing presentation of the music that they distract me from what I have to do
Seriously, after 1 month of ownership I love them more every day. Still no use for the ANC (I only tested it when I received them) and the wear sensor stays off, so half of the tech is unused, but either my ear are adapting to them or they keep sounding better.

 

[edsjo]

I want to add a few observations after using these for a few weeks.

1) the ANC is just filtering the sound. Office setting sounds like having the ANC off except it will artificially amplify voices. City setting doesn't seem to cancel out much sound at all... just the lower frequencies while amplifying the high frequencies. City mode sounds more like wearing open back headphones while walking about in the city. I guess the idea is to increase situational awareness in city mode, but not really filter noise out. Airplane mode is most aggressive however at a recent convention I was at, voices where still coming through... maybe designed that way to be able to hear the flight attendants or announcements. I hope on the firmware update they add more settings that are just general noise cancelling settings rather than active filtering of certain frequencies for certain situations.

On a recent flight I made I had my Sony MDR-1000X with me as well and compared the ANC on the plane. 1000X in default setting (most ANC) and PX on Flight mode (with least voice pass through, i.e. default flight mode). The 1000X cancels out more noise, both engine noise and other noise (talking etc), whereas the PX focus more on cancelling out the engine noise and lets through more voices. It was very clear when there were announcements or talking to the flight attendants. With the 1000X you need to take them off or do the hand-over-earcup trick to let the environment through. On the PX you still hear voices even though they are muted. I would say that it felt like they both filtered out engine sound as much though. The 1000X feels more like you are in a bubble of silence, whereas the PX feels more like you are still in your environment, but with the most disturbing noise (engines) muted down a lot. In fact I preferred the PX way of noise cancelling, it felt more natural.

 

[GrussGott]

The 1000X feels more like you are in a bubble of silence, whereas the PX feels more like you are still in your environment, but with the most disturbing noise (engines) muted down a lot. In fact I preferred the PX way of noise cancelling, it felt more natural.

This is why last year I skipped over ANC altogether and got the P7 wireless - my primary use case is airline travel and I've found I'd much rather have quality than ANC. I was considering PX and maybe still am, but I just tried the P9s instead and still like my P7 better, so I'm thinking of calling a Tidal HiFi + Mojo + P7wireless my PX.

It makes me wonder if ANC is a solution looking for a problem.

 

[djsubtronic]

Quick question ... do these headphones automatically power off after a period of inactivity if the proximity sensor has been disabled?

 

[R o d]

On a recent flight I made I had my Sony MDR-1000X with me as well and compared the ANC on the plane. 1000X in default setting (most ANC) and PX on Flight mode (with least voice pass through, i.e. default flight mode). The 1000X cancels out more noise, both engine noise and other noise (talking etc), whereas the PX focus more on cancelling out the engine noise and lets through more voices. It was very clear when there were announcements or talking to the flight attendants. With the 1000X you need to take them off or do the hand-over-earcup trick to let the environment through. On the PX you still hear voices even though they are muted. I would say that it felt like they both filtered out engine sound as much though. The 1000X feels more like you are in a bubble of silence, whereas the PX feels more like you are still in your environment, but with the most disturbing noise (engines) muted down a lot. In fact I preferred the PX way of noise cancelling, it felt more natural.

Well, this is the most positive user experience of the ANC capability of the PX in this thread. It gives me great encouragement for a lengthy, multi-city international flight I have coming up. Thanks for sharing.

It makes me wonder if ANC is a solution looking for a problem.

If you fly a lot you realize very quickly that the problem is real.

 

[GrussGott]

If you fly a lot you realize very quickly that the problem is real.

I fly all of the time domestic and internationally and I don't need ANC - I have the P7wireless. Try a good set of headphones driven from a high quality source for music or a movie and then tell me you need ANC.

I have 14 hours of flights coming up next week (and a domestic rt this weekend) and I have my usual in-flight kit: Tom Bihn packing cube shoulder bag modded with nite-ize carabiners to clip onto the seat in front of me or it just sits in the storage of the lay-flats. Inside i've got a ditty kit, P7Ws, Chord Mojo, anker 20k powerblock, and a tablet loaded with movies. My phone has tidal high-res music downloaded and podcasts and I have a 2nd phone for back up.

I traveled all this year like that with P7s after using ANC for 3 years prior and I learned one very important thing:

Shiitty sounding headphones like Bose or the Sonys need ANC, good headphones do not.

 

[wildpanda86]

I fly all of the time domestic and internationally and I don't need ANC - I have the P7wireless. Try a good set of headphones driven from a high quality source for music or a movie and then tell me you need ANC.

I have 14 hours of flights coming up next week (and a domestic rt this weekend) and I have my usual in-flight kit: Tom Bihn packing cube shoulder bag modded with nite-ize carabiners to clip onto the seat in front of me or it just sits in the storage of the lay-flats. Inside i've got a ditty kit, P7Ws, Chord Mojo, anker 20k powerblock, and a tablet loaded with movies. My phone has tidal high-res music downloaded and podcasts and I have a 2nd phone for back up.

I traveled all this year like that with P7s after using ANC for 3 years prior and I learned one very important thing:

Shiitty sounding headphones like Bose or the Sonys need ANC, good headphones do not.

Agreed.. the P7's plus a small portable amp/ dac will drown out the engine noise on a plane. But to do this I have to turn it up louder than usual cause the engine sounds drown the bass a bit.

With the PX I can get away with lower levels which is better as far as preserving hearing in the long run.

 

[edsjo]

Quick question ... do these headphones automatically power off after a period of inactivity if the proximity sensor has been disabled?

If you have no music playing they

a) power off after about 2 minutes if you have ANC off
b) do not power off if you have ANC on

This makes a lot of sense in case you want to use them just for noise cancelling, i.e. you don't have to listen to anything for that to work.