[davidhunternyc]

I am looking to get my nephew a great Christmas present. I have not heard either headphone; the PX or P7 wireless. Which has better sound quality? Thank you.

 

[Brava27]

I am looking to get my nephew a great Christmas present. I have not heard either headphone; the PX or P7 wireless. Which has better sound quality? Thank you.

The P7 wireless. Much better bass for young people. Cheaper too. I have used both.

 

[trellus]

The P7 wireless. Much better bass for young people. Cheaper too. I have used both.

Cheaper? Please tell me where.

I’m still seeing the same price for both.

 

[josler]

Ok, I'm noticing something incredibly annoying post-update. When I'm using the headphones without playing anything, there is no background noise. When I visit a webpage that makes noise, or when I recieve a notification, there is an extremely audible electric noise before the sound kicks in, followed by another electric noise when the sound ends or I leave the page. I did not notice this before the update, but now that I have, it's actually driving me nuts.

 

[TheWalrus]

I am looking to get my nephew a great Christmas present. I have not heard either headphone; the PX or P7 wireless. Which has better sound quality? Thank you.

I'm afraid it's not that simple. They sound completely different. And it's totally subjective what sound signature you like. They can not be compared. Both are great!

I like the PX more.

Pros:

B & W PX:

+Great sound
+More natural frequency response than the P7
+more detailed
+Great soundstage
+Smaller than the P7. Looks better on me.

Bonus: Active noise canceling when needed. And power saving features like the wear sensor.


B&W P7 wireless:

+More bass if you’re into that. A lot of people are.
+Great lively sound due to the slightly exaggerated bass and treble which a lot of people prefer. Not as natural as the PX though.
+Good looking design. More beautiful than the PX.
+Can be used wired without power.


Cons:

B&W PX:

-Have to be powered on to use them. Even though the battery life is good and usually lasts for a week or more when using the wear sensor.

-The wear sensor can be a bit finicky for some people where the sound pauses when they move their heads in certain ways. Does not happen often though. Wear sensor can be turned off.

-very sensitive to having a good seal around the ear cups. Bad seal=hollow sound with no bass. In my opinion they can’t be used with glasses which breaks the seal.


B&W P7 wireless:

-No power saving features.
-No ANC
-very big. Might not look good on everyone. To big for me.

 

[davidhunternyc]

Wow, thank you so much for this thorough reply. It makes my decision much easier. : )

 

[malibuboats91]

The P7 wireless. Much better bass for young people. Cheaper too. I have used both.

Where do I find the P7 cheaper?

 

[qba3d]

Recently I was listening to PX using different sources.. and I also noticed how insanely sensitive to the source they are!! Connecting them through USB and listening Tidal shows how big the real potential of these phones is considering their NC nature..
I also noticed something really surprising.. listening through BT from Ipad Pro 12.9 second gen gives a much better quality then say, Iphone 5s.. and it should not be that way since they both use AAC. That leads me ti the question, maybe some one saw a solution, is there a dongle somewhere that would enable APTX HD on MacBook or PC? I really feel that codec itself is the biggest quality limiter now for PX's on BT. Any one did a comparison maybe ( AAC/Aptx/Aptx HD/ USB)? Maybe its just me..

 

[trellus]

Recently I was listening to PX using different sources.. and I also noticed how insanely sensitive to the source they are!! Connecting them through USB and listening Tidal shows how big the real potential of these phones is considering their NC nature..
I also noticed something really surprising.. listening through BT from Ipad Pro 12.9 second gen gives a much better quality then say, Iphone 5s.. and it should not be that way since they both use AAC. That leads me ti the question, maybe some one saw a solution, is there a dongle somewhere that would enable APTX HD on MacBook or PC? I really feel that codec itself is the biggest quality limiter now for PX's on BT. Any one did a comparison maybe ( AAC/Aptx/Aptx HD/ USB)? Maybe its just me..

I think at least in theory the version of Bluetooth in the 5S (4.0, I believe) vs what it's in the iPad Pro 12.9 (probably 4.2 or at least 4.1) could have some impact on the quality since later versions of Bluetooth support faster speeds and that might cause iOS to use a higher bitrate for AAC when transmitting.

 

[Herman]

I’ve been using the PX for a week side by side with the P5 series 2. At first i thought that the PX lacks bass, the in fact it does not. It’s goes quite low but more neutral in my opinion. Also With iphone 6s the AAC codec sounds very detailed. Perhaps it’s my age or Halo erfect, but really cannot hear much difference (if any) with Qobuz/dragonfly red/P5 series 2. Quit Qobuz because it suffered a lot of dropouts/latency and DFR clicking noise.

 

[Herman]

Does Anyone use PX with iphone 8, 8plus or X? Is it better sounding than 6s?

 

[redrich2000]

I am looking to get my nephew a great Christmas present. I have not heard either headphone; the PX or P7 wireless. Which has better sound quality? Thank you.

I had both and just sold my P7W. It was very close decision between them, I discussed in detail a few pages back. Basically as @TheWalrus says, they are very different. P7W a bit too V-shaped, huge bass slam, very sparkly treble. The PX is more neutral sounding but has gone a bit too far in the direction and lacks a bit of treble sparkle and midrange clarity. It also at times has this odd boxy character that the P7W doesn't.

As I said I went for the PX. I think it very slightly wins on SQ and I definitely prefer it aesthetically. NB. I don't ever use ANC.

 

[davidhunternyc]

I had both and just sold my P7W. It was very close decision between them, I discussed in detail a few pages back. Basically as @TheWalrus says, they are very different. P7W a bit too V-shaped, huge bass slam, very sparkly treble. The PX is more neutral sounding but has gone a bit too far in the direction and lacks a bit of treble sparkle and midrange clarity. It also at times has this odd boxy character that the P7W doesn't.

As I said I went for the PX. I think it very slightly wins on SQ and I definitely prefer it aesthetically. NB. I don't ever use ANC.

I thank all of you for your help. In the end I took a totally different direction. I inquired into the habits of my nephew. He is athletic and he races motorcycles, bicycles and races triathlons.
In his down time he tinkers in the garage. Sound quality in a headphone is not his priority and he mostly listens to podcasts with his Jaybird IEM's. So I took a risk. Yesterday I bought him CrazyBaby Air Nano's after searching endlessly for Apple AirPod's which are now out of stock. There aren't any reviews yet of the CrazyBaby Nano's but they look promising. If the Nano's sound quality equals the AirPod's I think they will be a hit with my nephew. They are small, practical, and they come in black. They seem to fit securely in the ear and they do not look like a toothbrush is sticking out. We will see if CrazyBaby can ship them by Christmas.

 

[Herman]

I have compared th PX w/ usb on my MacBook and w/ dragonfly red on MacBook. Direct thru usb the sound is much better. Must be a good dac inside the PX

 

[qba3d]

I think the DAC is ok ( hard to say but it is not perfectly smooth and does not have the finesse of dragonfly to my ears), but I think line-in probably is still being converted via DAC as PXes dont work without power. I am guessing that if B&W could introduce internal EQ, we could fix a lot of small imperfections of PX. To me that could really ease the boxy sound tendencies that those have via elevated ( and not always precise because of BT compression) mids... as that probably with some DSP trickery creates this boxy feel in some more complex tracks. I experimented a bit and minimally lowered freq around 400hz and created a delicate elevation around 1k and it unwrapped the vocals a lot and reduced the boxy reverb , but once I connected via USB audio, I noticed that the reverb is much much more delicate without tweaks, so I am guessing it is somehow connected with compression in mids. Still feel the mids elevation a tiny bit and a minimal lack of energy around 1k, but boxiness is gone.