Today we are serving up some hands-on impressions of the new Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 wireless earbuds. Complete with active noise cancellation and a charging case that features audio retransmission, the brand is well known for producing some of the better sounding audio gear out there, and it’s time to see if the new Pi8 buds are worth a lofty price of admission in the latest edition of https://9to5toys.com/guides/tested/.
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Hands-on with the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 – some of the best sounding earbuds anywhere
The Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 wireless earbuds come in four colorways, Anthracite Black, Dove White, Jade Green, and Midnight Blue, with a $399 list price.
Features at a glance
- Active noise cancellation + Transparency mode
- 5-band customisable EQ + TrueSound mode
- 2z 12mm Carbon Cone
- 24-bit DSP
- Bluetooth 5.4 with aptX Lossless technology
- Multipoint connectivity
- Up to 6.5 hour battery on the buds, 20 with case
- 15-minute fast charge
- Touch sensitive bud controls
- Wireless audio retransmission, included 3.5mm cable
- Wireless and USB-C charging
- Apple MFi Made for iPhone support
- IP54 (earbuds)
9to5Toys’ Take
Firstly let’s quickly touch on the build quality. At this point it’s starting to feel like the same old thing across every brand, attempting to discern the differences in the quality of plastics used to make up the frame and form-factor. But Bowers & Wilkins has managed to, despite the use of plastic throughout, managed to deliver something that at the very least feels more premium than something from the Bose or Apple lineup.
The sort of matte treatment and texture comes off as a step above the direct competition, complete with tonal banding of alternate, slightly greyed accent details and a shiny, almost lacquered-looking top plate with a near mirrored black finish on the buds themselves, it’s about as high-end a treatment as I have seen in person.
The battery life on these buds is nothing overly remarkable – there are budget headphones with longer battery than this, but it is relatively inline with what we see from the competition in this general price range as well – 6.5 hours in the buds themselves with an additional 13.5 hours in the charging case. A 15-minute quick charge delivers an additional 2 hours of playback (or very close to it in my testing). Again, nothing to write home about here, but far more than I’ll ever need.
Touch controls
The buds, as is customary these days, feature touch controls so you can access basic control over the playback and calls without reaching for the app. They are quite responsive without being overly sensitive like we have seen from others as of late. I hate when these touch controls trigger too easily, but B&W has got this right for me – you’ll need to lightly tap to stop playback, or hold your finger in place for a quick second to actually switch the ANC modes, for example, and I’m a big fan of this.
The touch controls can be assigned for volume controls, to call up your voice assistant of choice, and to toggle between ANC and Transparency mode, but not all them. You can have left earbud toggle the listening modes while the right ear summons Siri…or…you can have volume controls where the left ear is down and the right ear is up.
You can also toggle the Wear sensor on and off from within the companion app – this will pause playback when you remove one of the buds – but there is no automatic adjustment of the audio when you start talking.
Charging case and audio retransmission
I like the charging case – it too presents much of the aesthetic prowess of the buds to deliver a more premium look and feel for me. It, as you can imagine, provides all of the usual wired and wireless charging capabilities, carrying an extra 13.5 hours of juice to land at that 20-hour total battery life, but it is the audio retransmission that makes it stand out. It’s not an unheard of, first-of-its-kind feature, as we are starting to see this on some of the more flagship options out there, but it is a handy one.
Included in the package you’ll find a USB-C to 3.5mm cable, this enables you to transmit audio from wired sources (like an in-flight system) wirelessly from the case to the buds, effectively negating the need to buy one of those AirFly like gadgets and, in turn, lightening your travel load at the same time. I haven’t been on a flight since receiving these buds, but this feature has worked great on just about everything else I have tested it on.
Sound quality
After testing out the new Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 earbuds for over a month now, one thing is immediately clear, these are some fantastic sounding buds, and perhaps the best I have ever used. You’re going to pay for it, and they might not be quite as impressive in terms of the ANC tech as some of the direct competition, but wow do they sound good.
Every intricate detail, from the lowest deep bass right up to the delicate high-end, they sound particularly detailed, accurate, and pleasing. Singers are right up front like they are performing right in front of you, every detailed buzz of the acoustic guitar, tight, punchy drum hits and percussive synth bass, just about any song and any genre I tested sings the way it was meant to be – this is always going to be a subjective thing, but I personally can’t praise the sound reproduction enough here.
Folks who don’t really care about the minute detail in audio recordings might not appreciate what the Pi8’s are capable of. If you’re the type to just want to blast your head with pounding bass – I certainly do from time-to-time – what makes these headphones great might be lost on you, especially considering the price here. They are just as loud, and sound just as good at extreme volumes as anything I have tried in this relative price range, but it’s really all about the detail here in my opinion.
They support aptX-compatible sources at up to 24-bit/96kHz resolutions, but in my experience they sound simply great no matter what source you’re listening to. There’s some basic custom EQ options you can mess around with in the app, but for me the “True Sound” toggle that overrides the custom EQ options is the best bet in just about every situation, which is a sign of a great sounding pair of buds in my opinion.
In the end, it’s all about the sound with these wireless earbuds. Other models out there, many of which in lower price points, offer more bells and whistles in the feature department, deeper Siri integration, cases with displays on them, additional listening modes, ANC customization, in-ear fit tech, and more, but not very many of them sound this good to my ears. If you’re looking to drop the sort of cash Bowers & Wilkins gear tends to demand, it’s hard to go wrong here. And frankly you get what you pay for with the Pi8 buds – they sound like they are worth $399.
Buy the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 wireless earbuds
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