[Asspirin]

Why by noise cancelling headphones if you don’t need it? Probably a third of the price is for this feature.

From an audiophile standpoint, ANC is a gimmick. A useful addition, if outside noise is seriously interfering with your music. In these situations, ANC is used to maintain at least some listening pleasure. But the thing is, ANC inevitably deteriorates audio quality. So why use it when it's not needed? And I disagree about the price. The PX are the nicest looking and most well-built headphones I've ever seen in this price class. And for a wireless headphone, the sound is just heavenly. I would not hesitate to spend that amount of money for this kind of sound quality in a wireless headphone even without ANC. The ANC feature just makes buying these 'phones a no-brainer IMO.

 

[Burty]

I dare not after all you are a bull and I have a red rag....oh go on then what about b&w p7? I’m sure there must be better for the money without ANC. It was a genuine question and not meant to annoy so sorry for that!
TBH I prefer the sound of the PX to the P7s and there’s around £100 price difference but I’d guess some others would be happy to chip in. I was only looking for headphones with ANC when I bought mine. I have sure SE535 Ltds which I also use and think are OK. I’m no major headphone buff.

 

[Dreamnine]

I can't go back to wired in ear earphones, either. I have some Dunu Titan 1s which I used to think sounded great. When I'm outside I'll use my Sennheiser Momentum frees which I found to have the best sound quality and fit of any set when I bought them (and I went through a number of expensive sets). They probably don't sound better than the Dunu's but it's just that pesky wire - I can't tolerate it any more and I've been spoiled by the PX and PXC 550s that I only listen to full sized headphones in the house.

The only exception to this is when I'm in bed listening to podcasts or music when I'll also listen to the Momentum frees. I just can't bear wires any more. I haven't even tested out my headphones with cables yet, ie. with my iPhone or MacBook. I believe that I wouldn't hear a difference between wired and bluetooth anyway.

I may give it a go with my Dunu's and iPod Shuffle tomorrow, see if I've been missing anything.

 

[UnsaneBrain]

I dare not after all you are a bull and I have a red rag....oh go on then what about b&w p7? I’m sure there must be better for the money without ANC. It was a genuine question and not meant to annoy so sorry for that!
TBH I prefer the sound of the PX to the P7s and there’s around £100 price difference but I’d guess some others would be happy to chip in. I was only looking for headphones with ANC when I bought mine. I have sure SE535 Ltds which I also use and think are OK. I’m no major headphone buff.

No problem and certainly wasn't winding you up. Apologies if my post came across as severe.

I do love the PX. Listening to online radio at moment and the PX deliver as they always do.

 

[Burty]

No worries they are fab headphones. I don’t know about this but logic should suggest there must be a better pair for £330 without ANC or are they just a bargain. I do slightly prefer the sound to my Shure SE535 LTd’s so maybe they are just that good?

 

[UnsaneBrain]

No worries they are fab headphones. I don’t know about this but logic should suggest there must be a better pair for £330 without ANC or are they just a bargain. I do slightly prefer the sound to my Shure SE535 LTd’s so maybe they are just that good?

As I said, you tell me.

 

[Burty]

I don’t know. Never looked into it.
Anyone else?

 

[Dreamnine]

I always wondered why they were £119 less than the H9i's.

 

[XRcrush]

But am I right from other posts that it would work via the USB-C on my MacBook straight to the phones? I have quite a bit of lossless music on my laptop and this would be interesting to try. Would there be any difference from using the 3.5mm jack on my Mac?

I only listen to 1411 kbps lossless (Tidal Hifi streaming or downloads). This works fine via Bluetooth and USB-C and sounds clearly better than the lossy streams from Apple Music or Spotify.

While you'd expect USB-C to sound much better without the Bluetooth 'bottleneck' from the SBC, AAC or AptX codecs, I've found this is not to be the case. B&W confirmed this too btw. With the PX, the signal or datastream always goes through its own DAC and signal processing including upsampling to 768kHz. etc. Regardless the type of connection used. I didn't try the analog 3.5 jack yet for music but this one is likely to provide the lowest sound quality. Especially if you're not using a separate high-end / audiophile DAC. In any case, using a 3.5mm jack you'll be adding an extra (unneeded) DA conversion + amplification at the source side (your laptop / phone / separate DAC) that still feeds the PX's own DAC that - again - will do another A-D and D-A conversion, processing + amplification. This repoduction chain is not likely to give the best results. With passive wired headphones the situation is totally different. I think most - if not all - ANC headphones are like the PX in this respect but I'm not sure.

From my laptop (HP - Windows10), USB-C plays a lot louder than Bluetooth (AptX). But if you set the volume level the same, there is very little difference in sound quality between BT and USB-C. On some good recordings there is a little more bass extension and the treble seems a tiny bit cleaner. But as you only hear this on very good recordings, even then the difference is never more than very small. Not worth getting wired-up for imo. But the connections are there so why not try and compare them yourself?

B&W is very clear about the best possible sound quality from the PX. AptX HD. I hope more laptops will support AptX HD soon. Or maybe even the iPhone/iPad at some point but I doubt that.

 

[Dreamnine]

Thanks for explaining and clearing that up for me.

 

[davidcotton]

I've never had this issue on top of the head with headphones - I even owned the first iteration of Blue Mo-Fi and did not with that either. I have a reasonable head of thick ish hair though, which may help.

I agree re the case; amazed B&W have not produced a leather accessory case that retails for $150 or something....! They're missing a revenue stream there.

It's damned annoying. If I have headphones on the top of the head it becomes annoying, if I move it forward then it sits flat but feels like it's about to fall off!

 

[Place Holder]

Is it safe to charge these using USB-C laptop chargers like the MacBook laptop charger or Dell XPS laptop charger? I.e. any USB-C PD (power delivery) charger?

Would be nice to have just one charger when travelling that can charge laptop, phone (which my Dell XPS laptop charger does) and the PX.

 

[Darbouze]

Hey guys, I'm definitely a complete noob when it comes to the audio scene. I just picked up a pair of Bowers and Wilkins px for 250 dollars off eBay after using their 15% off site wide coupon. I figured I couldn't pass the deal up. Well after watching hours of videos about dacs, daps, dsd files, impedance rates, etc. I feel like I have a basic grasp on what it takes to get good sound out of a pair of headphones. With all that said I'm still kind of confused as to if I should purchase a dac to use with my px's. Will using a dac (specifically the fiio q1 mk2) improve the audio quality of the px's as opposed to just using aptx hd? Has anyone tried it? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm a student on a budget so I wanna be sure before I shell out the 90 bucks for an external dac.

 

[Asspirin]

. Will using a dac (specifically the fiio q1 mk2) improve the audio quality of the px's as opposed to just using aptx hd?

Definitely not. The PX cannot be operated passively, so the 3.5mm signal will also pass the internal amp. The PX are made for wireless operation and they sound best with AptX HD.

 

[alchemical]

Is a new headphone release of some sort expected from B&W this year? Still loving my PX and intrigued about what's next. Still hoping they give in-ears another shot soon, wireless or otherwise.