Bowers & Wilkins - Px7S3 Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Over-the-Ear Headphones - Indigo Blue

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• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Headphone

  • Incentivized
  • Verified Purchaser
  • Owned for 1 month

  I have owned many headphones in the past, but these are some of the best noise canceling and audio file headphone I have ever owned. They are very comfortable to wear and when they are set to transparent mode you are able to hear people around you no problem.

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  This review is from Bowers & Wilkins - Px7S3 Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Over-the-Ear Headphones - Anthracite Black

  SamsonS Posted 2 months ago

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  ANC Headphones That Prioritize Sound First

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  • Top 100 Contributor

  📦 UNBOXING: Inside the box, you’ll find the headphone case with the headphone inside, and some documentation to get started. Inside the case, you’ll find a nice USB Type-C to Type-C cable, and a USB-C to 3.5mm cable for analog audio. 💪 BUILD: Upon first impression, the hard case is very sturdy and doesn’t flex, so it won’t compress when put in a bag. The magnetic flap inside the case is strong so you shouldn’t have any problems keeping the cables organized. The headphone itself is fairly lightweight and uses primarily plastic for its construction with some metal, as well as fabric on the back of the ear cups. The earcups rotate 180 degrees to get a good fit for many head shapes, and the headband seems to flex reasonably wide for larger heads. ⚙️ CONTROLS: On the left ear cup, you’ll find the power/pairing switch as well as the quick action button which by default toggles between ANC, Transparency and Off. You can change the quick action button to toggle your voice assistant instead, but I don’t see why anybody would want that. Many other headphones allow you to hold the play/pause button to spawn your voice assistant, but that doesn’t work here. The right ear cup has the play/pause button and volume up and down buttons. You can also navigate tracks by double-pressing to go forward a track or triple-pressing to go backward. You can also use the play/pause button to answer, reject or end calls with a tutorial in the app to explain every control. One thing that I really like is how responsive the wear sensor is. Whenever I lift an ear cup off my head or remove the headphones, the playback immediately pauses. You can adjust this sensitivity or completely disable this behavior from the app. As for complaints, I think the only thing I dislike about these physical controls is that they’re quite small, so it can be a bit hard to find them at first, but I’ve acclimated pretty quickly. Another thing I would have liked to see would be a way to switch which devices the headphone was connected to via the power toggle on the left ear cup. As it stands right now, a quick slide up on that switch currently does nothing. I think it could be an intuitive way to switch devices without needing to use your app to tell the headphone which device to reconnect to, or manually connecting to the headphone via the device itself. With that said, the headphone does connect to two devices simultaneously. If I’m playing music on my laptop, but switch to a music app on my phone, it immediately pauses playback on my laptop and begins playback on my phone. In my experience, this has probably been one of the best executions of this feature I’ve experienced yet, as it works quickly and reliably. ☁️ COMFORT: The Px7 S3 has a shallower ear cup compared to some other headphones, and while it doesn’t feel spacious, it also doesn’t feel confined to me. The headband padding is plush and provides decent comfort for the apex of your scalp so you don’t feel pain. The clamp force isn’t egregious out of the box, so I had a comfortable listening experience from the start. The ear pads are also plush so they won’t cause unnecessary pressure on your jaw, and I’m able to get a closed seal so there aren't any issues with noise leakage. 🎧 SOUND QUALITY: Out of the box, the Px7 S3’s “True Sound” EQ profile has a bassy sound profile with a touch of bloat into the midrange, but I did not find the bloat to dramatically influence my listening experience. For R&B, Hip Hop, Pop and Electronic, this stock sound profile can be very pleasant, as it lets vocals through cleanly while also delivering exciting bass performance without muddying the instrumentation. For metal, rock and alternative, I think the Px7 S3 could sometimes deliver more bass than desirable as it steals some energy from the midrange where guitars will be most prevalent. However, the 5-band EQ lets you adjust this in 0.5dB increments. It’s not exactly clear which frequencies Bowers & Wilkins lets you control in their EQ since it simply has labels for LO, MID and HI. But I did overall find that it was reasonably effective in obtaining a more pleasant sound profile to my ears. The headphone has a more intimate sound stage, but instrument separation is good and vocals stay centered in the mix without being too prominent or too small. Compared to the competition for ANC headphones around this price range, I think the Px7 S3 is one of the bassier headphones I’ve tested, but one that delivers bass with good control, low distortion, and packs a punch without severely compromising the midrange. The treble to me, is normally a touch warm for some of my music which is great for avoiding fatigue, but there is a bit of sibilance which might be more prevalent for some music libraries, so EQ can become your friend if you encounter that. I also appreciate that you can use the headphone in a wired USB-C configuration with the internal DAC. It does charge while in use, and you do need to power the headphone on to use it wired. At the time of writing, Bowers & Wilkins is working on a spatial audio implementation that will come in a future firmware update. 🔊 ANC / AMBIENT SOUND: The ANC performance is a notch lower than the mainstays in ANC headphones, but it is still quite good. If ANC performance is higher on your priority list compared to sound quality, then you will probably want to consider the latest options from the competition, but if you want to prioritize sound quality over ANC, I do think the Px7 S3 is a solid performer. The sound of children shouting and screaming will still manage to peak in, but during music playback it’s much less distracting—especially on busier tracks. Many other headphones have the ability to control ANC strength, but that doesn’t appear to be an option with this headphone. Personally, it’s not something I usually care about, as I don’t feel a strong pressure effect on the Px7 S3, and if I want to hear noise, I can just turn on the Transparency mode or turn off ANC. Speaking of the transparency mode, it sounds like a thin veil is placed over your ears, so you lose some clarity and a bit of loudness, but it’s quite good. I don’t hear a grainy noise floor like some other headphones when the transparency mode is enabled. 🎙️ MICROPHONE QUALITY: There are 8 microphones in total, with 4 mics per earcup. Bowers & Wilkins claims that on each ear cup is 1x Feedback microphone and 2x Feed-Forward microphones, and these are used especially for the noise cancellation. However, all 8 microphones are also used during calls to isolate speech from background noise and to deliver clear speech audio. In my testing, I find that the sound signature leans warm, but not muffled. If you’re speaking quietly, it may struggle to pick up your voice, but these would be great for conference calls and phone calls, alike. During USB-C usage, the microphone appears as a 1-channel 16 bit 3200MHz device, so you can use it for better microphone quality during conference calls or even gaming on Discord in a pinch. 📱 SOFTWARE: The app requires you to create a Bowers & Wilkins account, which I don’t love, but that appears to be the trend these days. The app provides firmware updates, switching between your custom EQs, pairing, removing and connecting to different devices, and toggling between your environment modes. You can also toggle the auto standby mode or the wear sensor. Eventually, they’ll be providing their spatial audio feature and Bluetooth LE Audio through a firmware update. 🔋 BATTERY: Bowers & Wilkins claims you can get 30 hours of playback with ANC enabled, and it only requires a 15 minute charge to get 7 hours of playback. This is on-par with the competition’s playback time with ANC enabled, so you won’t feel like you’re making a compromise here. 🧐 CONCLUSION: Overall, I feel that the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 is a good all-rounder ANC headphone. It has a nice premium hard case, and the design aesthetic leans premium and elegant. But it does very well when it comes to out-of-box sound quality compared to a lot of other premium headphones in this price bracket. While I think its ANC is a notch below the leaders of this category, I also find that the Px7 S3 prioritizes better sound in a way that the market leaders don’t. Moreover, the fact that you can use it in a USB-C DAC mode with good microphone support makes it more versatile for those moments where there might be too much wireless interference or you simply need lower latency.

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  Xephyroth Posted 6 months ago

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Wireless Luxury; Not Quite Lossless on iOS

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  I’m using these with an Apple iPhone 16 PRO, iOS v18.6. If you take your music very seriously, you will not be disappointed at all with the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones (from this point forward, I’ll refer to them as “B&W Headphones”). The sound is rich, crystal clear, well-balanced, and powerful. No matter what the genre. The bass response is impressive, although in songs that are bass-heavy, the 40mm drivers bottom out (mechanical distortion) even under moderate volume; this is not necessarily the case with all 40mm drivers generally speaking. This issue can typically be eliminated by adjusting the iPhone’s equalizer. The distortion does not occur frequently, is dependent on the song and volume, and should not be reason for a ‘buy / don’t buy’ decision alone. These work great for iPhone users, but, the B&W Headphones are not truly HiFi/lossless (see the last paragraph of this review). The B&W Headphones feel much like silk against your ears, and hold tight enough to your head so they don’t move, while remaining incredibly comfortable for hours of continuous use. These are pretty remarkable. The ear cups are thin, so they look and feel lighter (not clunky). The app is visually pleasing to look at and use, and the B&W Headphones pair effortlessly. I like apps like this to look ‘clean’ with the ability to hide information that you don’t need or want. There is an area called ‘Curated By Bowers & Wilkins’ that include selections for podcasts and sample play lists that you cannot hide or otherwise get rid of. There is also a feature called ‘Add More Music’, where you can link your favorite music streaming services. There is a lengthy list, but it does not include Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon Music, all of which are in the Top 4 music streaming services for 2025. This is a big miss in my opinion; I’m not able to link my streaming service, yet I have to look at the feature in bold on the app’s Home screen. Let me hide the feature and/or put it under its own Menu/dropdown. For me, it totally muddies up the app’s aesthetic. It functions very well however. Other Items: ***The three buttons on the right ear cup (volume, play/pause/rewind/skip ahead) are too small and/or thin. So if I need to pause music, or move to a different track, it’s easy for my thumb to hit the wrong button, and I spend time feeling them out, and sometimes just pull out my iPhone to adjust what I need to. ***The ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) is not completely effective. It does work great, but there are times where ambient sound is not cancelled (an example would be an air conditioner or fan in the background). ***On a full charge, the battery is impressive; it lasts for a really long time, even with increased volume and the ANC on. ***The carrying case is very sturdy, and even includes a compartment for a USB-C cable. In consideration of audiophiles, the B&W Headphones support advanced Bluetooth codecs like LDAC and aptX Adaptive, but iPhone users are limited to AAC — so you won’t get true lossless or Hi-Fi wireless playback. If you want to bypass that limitation, the headphones can also be used over USB-C, which avoids AAC compression by sending a direct digital signal into the B&W Headphones internal DAC and amp. It’s not a pure analog passthrough, but it does deliver cleaner sound than Bluetooth on iOS.

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  D1maddog1 Posted 6 months ago