I received my pair of B&W PX yesterday. It came with latest firmware. Here are my initial impressions:
First thing is first, the Sound Quality: Out of the box, it sounded so bad as almost everyone in this thread said. I tested PX (ANC always off) with my LG V20 which has APT-X HD for bluetooth connection and a good internal QUAD DAC/AMP for wired conneciton. With a side by side comparison against my P7W with the same source and same songs (Extreme Quality Spotify, Flac files and some HD sound files) PX sounded exactly like djsubtronic wrote above. I totally agree "tube effect" description. I understood what he was experiencing as I'm experiencing same, but I'll try to use different wording: PX sounds like it had a virtualizaion effect that most equalizer apps (ie Equalizer Pro or Equalizer FX on Android) have. It is an active sound processing filter which I don't like. I think PX sound lacks some clarity, especially mids sound like shadowed.
I also tested punchiness of Bass with appropriate songs, I can say that PX had nothing missing here. I can say It has even better bass dynamics and punchier bass than P7W. With full volume, I felt more vibration around my ears with PX on songs with huge amount off bass. I was really surprised about that since most PX + P7W owners here in this thread says opposite about bass. Check below link, I think French website measurements are close to what I hear, more bass, crushed mids vs P7W.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bow...elling-over-ears.861606/page-33#post-13785077
Now I started to burn-in process with pink/brown/white noises I found
in this post. I'll return PX and keep P7W if sound doesn't change enough after burn in.
I'll report after-burn in results on weekend.
Bluetooth Floor Noise: P7W bluetooth floor noise was disturbing me on silent parts of songs. This is really reduced on PX, close to an amount hard to nice even by sensitive ears.
Wired Floor Noise: Unfortunately PX has a wired floor noise which P7W doesn't have at all. But the amount is not much. I can say it's less than half of bluetooth floor noise of P7W and it's not disturbing.
Look: I prefer P7W as I found rectangular earcups and full leather headband are more stylish. But this is completely a personal preference.
Comfort: I prefer P7W as I felt more room for ear inside earcups
. Rectangular earcups also provides better fixing on head with P7W. But PX has softer earcup padding and pressure on ears are lighter, too.
Bluetooth + APTX HD: I had no connection problems. I had longer range with V20 (APTX HD), shorter range with usb dongle for PC (APT-X). Both distances are more than enough for me.
Wear Sensors: Works as advertised. I had no problem with wear sensors, no accidental play pauses, etc.
ANC: Not enough experience with ANC, but it seems to do its job. It blocked good amount of street noise when window is opened. I'll test commuting later.
Android App: As reported previously others, initial connection takes some time like 5-8 seconds. Once connection is established it works perfectly. I would love to see an equalizer option here in this App.