[monkins1010]

Had my head phones for a few weeks, audio quality is very appealing, closer to studio style sound than a eq messed with sound, not as open as Senesheiser HD555 but apples and oranges and all that.

They have a fault though which i'm extremely disappointed with, particularly the shop i bought them from. When in noise cancelling mode, the left ear cup has creaky noise as you move about walk, adjust your jaw. its easily replicated by pushing on the earcup compressing the foam against your head genitally. Superfi Ltd. in Derby manager "couldn't hear it" and said you'll have to send them to B&W because if there isn't a fault its going to cost us £60 for the RMA. All my friends and family can hear the noise so its not just me, and the problem follows the left cup if you put them on backwards.. ill have to RMA it with B&W which is going to leave me headphone less for a while . ... top tip check them when in noise cancelling mode and push the foam cup against your ear if you hear a loud creaking ask for another set.

maybe i left the shop to soon and didn't make a fuss, must of been in there for 20 minutes but he just kept looking blank and saying no but he was having none of it.

 

[MartWilliams]

Opinions from those of you who also have the Astel & Kern AK70 MkII.

I've been trying to compare the sound between the wired and Bluetooth with my PX's when using the AK70 MkII as the source and to be honest, apart from there being more volume with the wired connection, I'm struggling to notice any improvement. Now, it is very likely my ears aren't that great given they are attached to someone in their late 40's and are probably below average for my age to boot and I'm not actually much of an audiophile - at best a part time one, so I may lack the refinement to spot the differences.

I thought earlier that maybe the DAC in the Ak70 was ever-so-slightly more warm than that in the PX.

So I'm curious to hear from anyone who has both the PX and the AK70 MkII about whether they have a better experience with the audio from the DAC in the Astell compared to the PX or whether the DAC in the PX is actually close to the Astell.

On a side note, the auto pause function of the PX does not work properly with my AK70, it does stop initially when the headphones are removed from my head, but then starts again straight away and then the pause/play button on the headphone doesn't work. This problem is not present when using my old samsung Note 3, it just works with them.

Also, for your amusement, I'll confess to wasting quite a bit of time trying to compare the audio from the AK70 MkII and my Note 3 over bluetooth. Eventually the penny dropped and I realised that I'm not hearing the DAC from either device when streaming over bluetooth, I'm simply sending the same data to the DAC in the headphones! No wonder I couldn't tell any difference, lol.

 

[archagon]

I did some listening at the SF Sennheiser store recently, and I was surprised that the PX's soundstage and imaging seemed (admittedly in my memory) to be closer to the HD 800 than the HD 650. The 650 sounded good, but it didn't have that "whoa, where's that coming from" effect in Desafinado (João Gilberto & Stan Getz) for example that both the PX and 800 had.

I only wish more neutral headphones like the PX could deal with bass-dependent EDM. That genre just falls totally flat. Tried fiddling with EQ, no help at all — the V-MODA Crossfade 2 for example just wins out 100%. (Same vs. the 800 and 650.)

 

[BigBobbie87]

Had my head phones for a few weeks, audio quality is very appealing, closer to studio style sound than a eq messed with sound, not as open as Senesheiser HD555 but apples and oranges and all that.

They have a fault though which i'm extremely disappointed with, particularly the shop i bought them from. When in noise cancelling mode, the left ear cup has creaky noise as you move about walk, adjust your jaw. its easily replicated by pushing on the earcup compressing the foam against your head genitally. Superfi Ltd. in Derby manager "couldn't hear it" and said you'll have to send them to B&W because if there isn't a fault its going to cost us £60 for the RMA. All my friends and family can hear the noise so its not just me, and the problem follows the left cup if you put them on backwards.. ill have to RMA it with B&W which is going to leave me headphone less for a while . ... top tip check them when in noise cancelling mode and push the foam cup against your ear if you hear a loud creaking ask for another set.

maybe i left the shop to soon and didn't make a fuss, must of been in there for 20 minutes but he just kept looking blank and saying no but he was having none of it.

I had a similar issue on my first pair. After about a week or two of use, the left side of the band would click when I was putting them on and off. I returned to Amazon, and didn't have the same issue with the replacement.

 

[AlwaysForward]

I did some listening at the SF Sennheiser store recently, and I was surprised that the PX's soundstage and imaging seemed (admittedly in my memory) to be closer to the HD 800 than the HD 650. The 650 sounded good, but it didn't have that "whoa, where's that coming from" effect in Desafinado (João Gilberto & Stan Getz) for example that both the PX and 800 had.

I only wish more neutral headphones like the PX could deal with bass-dependent EDM. That genre just falls totally flat. Tried fiddling with EQ, no help at all — the V-MODA Crossfade 2 for example just wins out 100%. (Same vs. the 800 and 650.)

As an EDM head, I absolutely love the PX for it. The bass is deep and tight. Maybe I'll have to give the VModa a shot.

 

[archagon]

As an EDM head, I absolutely love the PX for it. The bass is deep and tight. Maybe I'll have to give the VModa a shot.

Don't get me wrong — the bass is good and balanced. But songs like Skairhaap (Bogtrotter), Alchemist (Savant), and Axolotl Throttle (Opiuo) just melt my brain on my other, warmer headphones. And I'm pretty sure that's how they're supposed to sound.

 

[bedlamite]

The PX isn't a basshead can. At all. Balanced, sure. Deep, hell no.

Perhaps if you use the City/Flight ANC modes, but then everything just becomes sloppy.

 

[TheWalrus]

The PX isn't a basshead can. At all. Balanced, sure. Deep, hell no.

Perhaps if you use the City/Flight ANC modes, but then everything just becomes sloppy.

My PX is has deep bass. I mean that I can hear really low sub frequencies clearly. The bass is just not exaggerated.

I may be wrong, but when I read that someone suggest that ANC will bring more bass, I think they have a bad seal on the earcups.
Because for me at least, I have most bass without ANC on. When I activate ANC there will be a little bit less bass and the soundstage narrows.

But if I have a bad seal on the cups the result will be the opposite. Then the bass will be really bad without ANC and when I activate ANC it will bring the bass back in to some extent.

 

[hongky]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't you still need a Qualcomm chipset to be able to utilize the codec?

Huawei Mate 10 with Kirin cpu support AptxHD

 

[Jabbah]

Had my head phones for a few weeks, audio quality is very appealing, closer to studio style sound than a eq messed with sound, not as open as Senesheiser HD555 but apples and oranges and all that.

They have a fault though which i'm extremely disappointed with, particularly the shop i bought them from. When in noise cancelling mode, the left ear cup has creaky noise as you move about walk, adjust your jaw. its easily replicated by pushing on the earcup compressing the foam against your head genitally. Superfi Ltd. in Derby manager "couldn't hear it" and said you'll have to send them to B&W because if there isn't a fault its going to cost us £60 for the RMA. All my friends and family can hear the noise so its not just me, and the problem follows the left cup if you put them on backwards.. ill have to RMA it with B&W which is going to leave me headphone less for a while . ... top tip check them when in noise cancelling mode and push the foam cup against your ear if you hear a loud creaking ask for another set.

maybe i left the shop to soon and didn't make a fuss, must of been in there for 20 minutes but he just kept looking blank and saying no but he was having none of it.

That's shocking customer service from the manager. It's not up to him to decide if there is a fault or not if you say there is. I'll be surprised if B&W will let you RMA it as usually within a certain time a manufacturer will insist it goes through the retailer. I got mine from John Lewis and had the same fault, although you could hear it without ANC enabled. JL didn't try to test them and accepted the return and gave a full refund as they didn't have any in stock. Still bought from them but online instead. You really should have made more of a fuss, sounds like the manager was just trying to save himself a bit of hassle. He should have just replaced them directly.

 

[Jabbah]

I may be wrong, but when I read that someone suggest that ANC will bring more bass, I think they have a bad seal on the earcups.
Because for me at least, I have most bass without ANC on. When I activate ANC there will be a little bit less bass and the soundstage narrows.

Earlier in the thread I noted this as I first tried listening with glasses on that had thick arms so caused a bad seal. The bass seemed to be more emphasised with ANC on, until I tried without glasses on. So much better after that. I now wear my contacts a lot more just to get the better sound.

 

[Jabbah]

Given the fact that OREO now contains just about every significant codec, I imagine that some players would have to alter their strategy. One thing we can be sure of though .. In the end, the consumer benefits by standardization, whichever codec wins ..

I imagine in Qualcomm's case that would be to sue Sony in some way. If LDAC is software only then this would only be a problem in the USA, most of the rest of the world realised that software shouldn't be patentable. However if the headphone side is hardware then there could certainly be some feathers flying if LDAC makes inroads on AptX market share.

 

[WDitters]

I imagine in Qualcomm's case that would be to sue Sony in some way. If LDAC is software only then this would only be a problem in the USA, most of the rest of the world realised that software shouldn't be patentable. However if the headphone side is hardware then there could certainly be some feathers flying if LDAC makes inroads on AptX market share.

True. The irony here is that the Sony 1000xm2 headphones support LDAC and APTX-HD and AAC .. On APTX-HD the PX sound better, although LDAC could very well make a difference in favor of the Sony due to its higher bandwidth

 

[maxmania]

That's shocking customer service from the manager. It's not up to him to decide if there is a fault or not if you say there is. I'll be surprised if B&W will let you RMA it as usually within a certain time a manufacturer will insist it goes through the retailer. I got mine from John Lewis and had the same fault, although you could hear it without ANC enabled. JL didn't try to test them and accepted the return and gave a full refund as they didn't have any in stock. Still bought from them but online instead. You really should have made more of a fuss, sounds like the manager was just trying to save himself a bit of hassle. He should have just replaced them directly.

I had been testing a second pair today and confirm you should not be getting any noise like that. Both pairs I have are running the latest firmware do not creak even when I have to run for my train/bus in London. My second pair is dropping out constantly even with the sensor set to off. There are some faulty units out there for sure.
monkins1010 I would advise going back to the store and either get them replaced or repaired.

 

[scarfacegt]

Listening a little bitt to the pxs yesterday.I think they are good allrounders for all kind of genres.Of course some genres shines more.Could always wanted more bass,but its not bad.I think edm is an pleasure to listen to on these.Hip hop too.

One thing that stood really out when i listened to them was the soundstage.Its really impressive.Its not like music is in your head.Its more like its oustide. really really fantastic.