Isn't glass filled nylon plastic then? I thought it was?
Bowers & Wilkins PX Noise-Cancelling Over-ears
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carlove
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It is, yes.
Sonic Defender
Headphoneus Supremus
Yes, and sadly the PX comfort for me was why I sold them. If the PX had been more comfortable I would still own them as I really liked everything about them.
InebriatedGnome
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I've had my PX for a couple of days now and am thoroughly enjoying them. Coming from the Senn HD650s at my desk, I don't quite get the whole "dance in the street" feeling some reviewers have praised, since the mids don't hold a candle to my Senns, but I'm nonetheless very happy with the PX sound and love the ease of connection, and the fact that I never need to pause them or switch them off.
There's one thing I've wondered about, though. Multiple people in the thread and online have talked about turning the ANC off, but the button on the cup doesn't actually do that. It just turns off the "real-world" noise cancelling profiles and voice passthrough. Is there a way to actually disable ANC, or are people just misinformed? I agree that these sound their best with the passthrough turned off, by the way, but as far as I'm aware that just means the cans sound excellent with regular old blanket ANC
There's one thing I've wondered about, though. Multiple people in the thread and online have talked about turning the ANC off, but the button on the cup doesn't actually do that. It just turns off the "real-world" noise cancelling profiles and voice passthrough. Is there a way to actually disable ANC, or are people just misinformed? I agree that these sound their best with the passthrough turned off, by the way, but as far as I'm aware that just means the cans sound excellent with regular old blanket ANC
kismetsky
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Are you using the app to manage the ANC profiles? The button switches between “ANC off” and whichever profile you have set in the app. Also, what version firmware are your headphones on?
viperxp
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Hi guys,
After owning those amazing headphones for about two weeks, and flying with them from Paris to Chile, please see my impressions. It's interesting how my opinion changes over the time.
Start:
I was looking for ANC phones, and started by comparing Bose to the Sony (by Bose I mean QC35 II, and by Sony I mean the wh1000xm2). Both didn't quite suite my needs, as the Bose were much more comfortable than the Sony, but did not have the mids clarity that I was looking for, and the Sony were just like Bose, just less comfortable, with less volume but much more features in the application. But then I heard about the PX's, and they seem to be the simple and smart choice - premium quality from premium manufacturer, more useful feflightatures than the competition (the build in DAC/AMP that replaces the computer sound card is a killer feature, IMHO). I found someone that sold those because of comfort issues, and while originally I went there only to have a listening session (at the time they were not on display on any store in Israel) I ended up buying the PX's second handed, for less than 300$, with about of month of usage. I bought because when I connected the phones to my X3 II I heard just the sound that I wanted - bassy but not overwhelming bass, forward mids with accented voices and clear hights - great for metal and live performances.
Part 1 - first 2-3 days
I connected the phones to PC with BT (no APT-X, surely no APT-X HD) and started enjoying. The problem that I feared the most - the comfort - didn't show up. Only my right ear starts hurting after several hours of listening. Regarding comfort - I think the best I can describe the fit would be ... boxing gloves. I feel like two firm oxing gloves hold my ears. And those gloves just hardly fit my ears, more on that later. The amazing thing is that ears manage to not sweat with those phones on - I thing genuine leather earpads contribute greatly here.
And the sound - just great, suddenly you start hearing more nuances in the mids, the bass is well controlled, there is that airy feeling between instruments, if you try M50 after those - you immideately feel the loss of "air" between instruments, and the loss of bass resolution. Regarding mids - it's like M50 have karaoke mode enabled - so much the voices feel attenuated near the PX's - anyway that's what I heard on Nightwish with the greatest vocalist. Suddenly I wanted to re-listen to all my collection. Most of the time I listened with ANC off or in the office mode. I found that for lower quality recordings or bitrate (spotify free) office mode works great - it smoothes out the low bitrate harshness.
I spent most on my time on work wearing those - around 7 hours daily.
Part 2 - second week
It becomes less fun listening to those phones. Right ear hurts after several hours, and it's not fun waiting until the pain will start. Regarding music and sound quality - it's great, but not involving, not "fun" . All music sounds great with those, but no music sounds fantastic, maybe only live metal performances. I thought about the loss of excitment and tried hooking the PX's with a cable or listening with X3 II - they started sounding amazing, again. Started considering buying the apt-x hd adapter.
Part 3 - the work trip
All of a sudden I was told that I have a business trip to Chile. Will put that ANC to a test
.
The fact that no hard, and not even semi-hard carrying case is included is a disgrace. For an item that is sort of made for travelers, not having the case is a huge bummer. Ah, and there is no hard case on Amazon that is made for the phones that gets decent reviews.
So ..
The ANC is very good (of course I am speaking about the "flight" mode). Almost all the noise magically disapears, but not all. There is still a hiss of moving air, something more like you hear in a car when you go really fast. Flying with those VS fluing without, or with ANC off is just uncomparable, they make the flight something much more bearable. The comfort ... well the right ear never adjusted to the phones - I think that the angled driver is contacting it, so the memory foam earpads adjusting will never fix it. Overall the experience is good, but the comfort is not great, and ANC is also not too great. The fact that there are Boses, that have a better comfort and better ANC (I have several people in the office that they say they almost hear nothing when flying, plus it has much better efficiency filtering out human voices) does not make the hurting ear feel better.
Part 4 - thoughts
I am listening to those phones now in a hotel room, and they are just to great, Every music thrown at them is handled with ease. The volume reserves are just huge, and the volume is very linear, unlike Bose that looses bass at higher volume levels because of the uncontrollable active eq eature.
Well, while those phones are just fantastic, I am considering selling those and getting the Bose. I will definetly loose in SQ, but will have a much easily enjoyable product. Too bad there is no perfect product.
If there are some suggestions of how the comfort problem can be solved - I would be happy to hear those.
*** off topic - "The Great Gatsby" soundtrack is a wonderful experience with those PX's.
After owning those amazing headphones for about two weeks, and flying with them from Paris to Chile, please see my impressions. It's interesting how my opinion changes over the time.
Start:
I was looking for ANC phones, and started by comparing Bose to the Sony (by Bose I mean QC35 II, and by Sony I mean the wh1000xm2). Both didn't quite suite my needs, as the Bose were much more comfortable than the Sony, but did not have the mids clarity that I was looking for, and the Sony were just like Bose, just less comfortable, with less volume but much more features in the application. But then I heard about the PX's, and they seem to be the simple and smart choice - premium quality from premium manufacturer, more useful feflightatures than the competition (the build in DAC/AMP that replaces the computer sound card is a killer feature, IMHO). I found someone that sold those because of comfort issues, and while originally I went there only to have a listening session (at the time they were not on display on any store in Israel) I ended up buying the PX's second handed, for less than 300$, with about of month of usage. I bought because when I connected the phones to my X3 II I heard just the sound that I wanted - bassy but not overwhelming bass, forward mids with accented voices and clear hights - great for metal and live performances.
Part 1 - first 2-3 days
I connected the phones to PC with BT (no APT-X, surely no APT-X HD) and started enjoying. The problem that I feared the most - the comfort - didn't show up. Only my right ear starts hurting after several hours of listening. Regarding comfort - I think the best I can describe the fit would be ... boxing gloves. I feel like two firm oxing gloves hold my ears. And those gloves just hardly fit my ears, more on that later. The amazing thing is that ears manage to not sweat with those phones on - I thing genuine leather earpads contribute greatly here.
And the sound - just great, suddenly you start hearing more nuances in the mids, the bass is well controlled, there is that airy feeling between instruments, if you try M50 after those - you immideately feel the loss of "air" between instruments, and the loss of bass resolution. Regarding mids - it's like M50 have karaoke mode enabled - so much the voices feel attenuated near the PX's - anyway that's what I heard on Nightwish with the greatest vocalist. Suddenly I wanted to re-listen to all my collection. Most of the time I listened with ANC off or in the office mode. I found that for lower quality recordings or bitrate (spotify free) office mode works great - it smoothes out the low bitrate harshness.
I spent most on my time on work wearing those - around 7 hours daily.
Part 2 - second week
It becomes less fun listening to those phones. Right ear hurts after several hours, and it's not fun waiting until the pain will start. Regarding music and sound quality - it's great, but not involving, not "fun" . All music sounds great with those, but no music sounds fantastic, maybe only live metal performances. I thought about the loss of excitment and tried hooking the PX's with a cable or listening with X3 II - they started sounding amazing, again. Started considering buying the apt-x hd adapter.
Part 3 - the work trip
All of a sudden I was told that I have a business trip to Chile. Will put that ANC to a test
.The fact that no hard, and not even semi-hard carrying case is included is a disgrace. For an item that is sort of made for travelers, not having the case is a huge bummer. Ah, and there is no hard case on Amazon that is made for the phones that gets decent reviews.
So ..
The ANC is very good (of course I am speaking about the "flight" mode). Almost all the noise magically disapears, but not all. There is still a hiss of moving air, something more like you hear in a car when you go really fast. Flying with those VS fluing without, or with ANC off is just uncomparable, they make the flight something much more bearable. The comfort ... well the right ear never adjusted to the phones - I think that the angled driver is contacting it, so the memory foam earpads adjusting will never fix it. Overall the experience is good, but the comfort is not great, and ANC is also not too great. The fact that there are Boses, that have a better comfort and better ANC (I have several people in the office that they say they almost hear nothing when flying, plus it has much better efficiency filtering out human voices) does not make the hurting ear feel better.
Part 4 - thoughts
I am listening to those phones now in a hotel room, and they are just to great, Every music thrown at them is handled with ease. The volume reserves are just huge, and the volume is very linear, unlike Bose that looses bass at higher volume levels because of the uncontrollable active eq eature.
Well, while those phones are just fantastic, I am considering selling those and getting the Bose. I will definetly loose in SQ, but will have a much easily enjoyable product. Too bad there is no perfect product.
If there are some suggestions of how the comfort problem can be solved - I would be happy to hear those.
*** off topic - "The Great Gatsby" soundtrack is a wonderful experience with those PX's.
Last edited:
Geekria EJB29 UltraShell Headphones Case on Amazon.
I have ran mine on APTX HD and tbh usually I go for the cable, the sound is still much better on cable.
I usually keep a pair of earphones in my headphone case for when I'm tired of having the headphones on. I simply couldn't change to Bose after owning these, I'd always be wishing the sound quality was better.
I have ran mine on APTX HD and tbh usually I go for the cable, the sound is still much better on cable.
I usually keep a pair of earphones in my headphone case for when I'm tired of having the headphones on. I simply couldn't change to Bose after owning these, I'd always be wishing the sound quality was better.
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viperxp
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Thanks for that case suggestion. The problem is that the case will not solve the comfort issues. Well need to think what's more important - SQ+overall refinement or comfort + better ANC.
Has anyone used these with iPod Classic? I'm thinking of buying noise cancelling headphones and at the moment considering these and PXC 550 since SQ and comfort is more important to me than ANC. I would be primarily using them with my 160 GB iPod Classic.
Couldn't get the update through the phone app. Tells me to download and use an app on mac or windows pc. Oh well......maybe another day.
d(-_-)b
New Head-Fier
Owned them PXs for a while now (almost 3 months) and all I can say in comparison to previously owned/tested Sony XM2s and Bose QC35 IIs is: The sound is the shi*, ANC is shi* - a few negative notes that come to my mind coming up:
Wish they would never have added the ANC and kept the price a bit lower thanks to it, since - especially compared to the XM2, the ANC really distorts the sound and adds that digital snake-hissing, which is super-annoying.
Also, why on earth can't you cycle through the stupid ANC profiles with that HW button on the earcup?
Why doesn't it have sound feedback (check Sony), or at least primitive beep-sound feedback when using that button?
Why is the ANC so significantly affected in outside conditions (low wind, breeze) through the MICs, even a headturn affects it pretty badly, compared to the other two?
Why does the iOS app take FOREVER to connect and show it's contents/the headphone's config, when the headphones are already connected via BT?
Comfort-wise, the Sony and especially the Bose beat the PX to the ground. It's not bad, but pretty effin' far from the other two. Also, if you're a minimal-cut/short-haired person like myself (0-1mm hair), they do hurt from the headband because of it = hair standing straight up - but only after an hour or so, TG. Wearing glasses is possible, but only within some unpleasant limits. The rear "wall" of the earcaps limit your glasses on how far they can go backwards - sit closer to your eyes. Also as someone has already mentioned - they do let some noise in, since the earcups' cushioning is pretty hard - which drives me supercrazy after owning the P5, P5v2 and P5 Wireless, since they were PG18+ class supersoft...
Everything else has been commented on pretty extensively already
Final words from my point of view - yes, I'd buy them again, but clearly for their sound, not the ANC. If B&W did spend some time reading this (and similar) thread(s), it would be pretty awesome if they dropped the ANC, switched to the softer P5-like cushions (and headband) and let all the other features intact (or improved just by a tiny bit)
P.S.: also as you might have already noticed, there's a new FW as of today (at least here in Europe) - v1.103
Wish they would never have added the ANC and kept the price a bit lower thanks to it, since - especially compared to the XM2, the ANC really distorts the sound and adds that digital snake-hissing, which is super-annoying.
Also, why on earth can't you cycle through the stupid ANC profiles with that HW button on the earcup?
Why doesn't it have sound feedback (check Sony), or at least primitive beep-sound feedback when using that button?
Why is the ANC so significantly affected in outside conditions (low wind, breeze) through the MICs, even a headturn affects it pretty badly, compared to the other two?
Why does the iOS app take FOREVER to connect and show it's contents/the headphone's config, when the headphones are already connected via BT?
Comfort-wise, the Sony and especially the Bose beat the PX to the ground. It's not bad, but pretty effin' far from the other two. Also, if you're a minimal-cut/short-haired person like myself (0-1mm hair), they do hurt from the headband because of it = hair standing straight up - but only after an hour or so, TG. Wearing glasses is possible, but only within some unpleasant limits. The rear "wall" of the earcaps limit your glasses on how far they can go backwards - sit closer to your eyes. Also as someone has already mentioned - they do let some noise in, since the earcups' cushioning is pretty hard - which drives me supercrazy after owning the P5, P5v2 and P5 Wireless, since they were PG18+ class supersoft...
Everything else has been commented on pretty extensively already
Final words from my point of view - yes, I'd buy them again, but clearly for their sound, not the ANC. If B&W did spend some time reading this (and similar) thread(s), it would be pretty awesome if they dropped the ANC, switched to the softer P5-like cushions (and headband) and let all the other features intact (or improved just by a tiny bit)
P.S.: also as you might have already noticed, there's a new FW as of today (at least here in Europe) - v1.103
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Rtings measured the PX as having more bass than the Beats Studio3, a more veiled treble, and the same boxy mids with an even more massive low-mid bump. Other than the stronger bass tuning and more spacious sound, I’m surprised so many people here went from the Studio3 to the PX. It’s a surprisingly similar FR. Though B&W probably did it better.
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/bowers-wilkins/px
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/bowers-wilkins/px
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nunomeneses
100+ Head-Fier
Note: The PX was measured with the ANC mode set to Office, since City and Flight setting have a small negative effect on the sound quality.
........
They measure ANC headphones with the ANC enabled as that’s typically how they’re intended to be listened.
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