Customer Ratings & Reviews

Fantastic sound. Enough to convince me to sell my Sony buds which are generally considered some of the best on the market. These don't have quite as good ANC as Sony, but the detail in sound is more important to me.

Overall a very good product, but I preferred the sound of the Denon Perl Pro. I loved the fit, but sound is the most important feature for me. The Denon PP fit me so i kept them and returned the B&Ws

Great headphones! The audio quality is one of the best I have ever owned. The noise cancellation wprka great as well

Looks and fit nice, the detailed highs and lows are great. Very well a good quality B&W product.

excellent sound... not so great controls... battery is ok... app is a little lacking...

Sound was great. Volume was even better when compared to Sennheiser or Sony. But i must have received some defective ones because when you get to 80%+ it would sound like busted speakers.

Sound is so awesome you wil be amazed by the clarity of sound

These earbuds have amazing quality sound that makes them unique.

For an audiophile, the pi8 Bowers and Wilkins earbuds can't be beat. I have had tbe contender Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds, but had to trade them in after multiple times, the individuals I call, or those who call me can't hear me through the Sony earbuds. The complaints were that I sound muffled or something else like I soud as if I'm under water.

Sound quality. It doesn’t hurt my ears after hours of using.

Sound quality is great. But, there is a distortion in the right ear. I had to return them and am waiting on the new pair. It sounded like if you turn your radio up too loud. I tried uninstalling the app, repairing them and putting them in and out of the case. Nothing worked.

Easily the best earbuds on the market today. Sound quality is amazing.

If you use these for Music only then these are beyond superb but the real downside is connectivity and phone calls. When taking a phone call you sound far and muffled besides being disconnected.

I have had many different brands of ear buds and these, by far, have the best sound quality. If you are strictly looking for sound quality, then I would definitely reccomend Pi8. But, the battery life is short. I wear these at work. 4 hours MAX.

I’ve come to know Bowers and Wilkins for their home audio speakers having a 5.1 system as my home entertainment system. Since I loved my speakers I was really anxious to get my hands on the Pi8 earbuds. I work in an open concept office for an engineering company and it really gets noisy, especially in the morning when we have our calls with our counterparts in India. The adjacent calls can be very distracting so I’m always looking for a pair of earbuds with active noise cancelling to help silence the noise. The Pi8 earbuds did not disappoint. Out of the box the medium tips that were already installed fit my ears perfectly. They do include 3 other pairs of tips so you can fine tune the fit to your ears. Also included is a charging case, a USB-C to USB-C charging cable and something you don’t usually see with other earbuds… a USB-C to 3.5mm jack audio cable (cool feature later). The charging case supports wireless charging so no need to plug in if you have a desktop wireless charger. The other feature of the case has to do with the included audio cable. This was a jaw dropper for me… the charging case can act as an audio transmitter if using the included USB-C to 3.5mm jack cable. So if you have a vintage audio player that doesn’t have Bluetooth you can use the tethered case as the interface. MIND BLOWN!!!! I have a stash of old iPods (yes, the old ones with wheel and audio jack) and now I can use them with the Pi8!!! Heck, I might even dig out my old Walkman cassette player!!! The Bowers and Wilkins Music app does a great job of linking 3rd party services such as Pandora and Tidal but I just use my Apple Music app or other streaming apps to push my music to the Pi8’s. With the app you can customize the touch controls, use the advanced equalizer to adjust the tone to your liking or I just leave it on True Sound which gets you a balanced output. You can also switch between pass through (which offers a bit of noise cancelling), noise cancelling or no noise cancelling. The app will also provide any firmware updates if any should be required. Finally the app also shows you the battery level for both the earbuds and the charging case. The sound quality is amazing. Switching between my rock, progressive rock, and audio books I find the True Sound audio output perfect without having to tweak the equalizer. I tend to wear my earbuds throughout the day due to the high noise level so I get in the habit of keeping my charging case’s battery at least 50% level and when I take a break away from my desk, I will toss the earbuds into the case. I get between 6 or 7 hours of full run time but since I do put them in the charger when I’m away from my desk I can usually go the whole day (11 hours) without having to worry about battery life. They are extremely comfortable, so I have no problem wearing them the entire day. The only ding I can give the Pi8’s is the price. At $399 it may be tough to justify for some but if you need a good pair of noise cancelling earbuds these are hard to beat.

I had high hopes but quickly disappointed! I truly feel my pair were defective because the sound and noise cancelling were nowhere close to my Bose Ultra Quiet headphones I recently purchased. I had to increase the equalizer settings to their max to get any fidelity. I also tested the two pair with my TV sound in the background. With the Bose I could not hear any sound with the Bowers I was able to hear the voices, muffled, but still intelligible. I may try another pair in the future, but for now I’m sticking with Bose.

Love the PI8's. Best buy delivers as promised as always!!

If you don’t mess around with it’s natural sound it might just sound great but if like extra bass these might not be for you

I've heard great thinks about Bowers & Wilkins over the years and decided to give their new Pi8 Wireless earbuds a try. Clearly, they are quite expensive as compared to the competition and I have higher expectations based on that. First off, you need to download the Music/B&W app to get them set up and fine tuned. Unpacking and set up was easy and I was up and running quickly. The box came with the charging case, the earbuds, various sizes of silicone ear tips, a USB C charging cable and a USB C to 3.5mm audio cable. From here, Im going to break out the positive from the negative things in separate sections below. The good stuff -Build quality and internal tech. The Pi8s are made of metal and seem very sturdy. Their weight is nice and I didn't have any issue wearing them over extended periods of time. They slide into the ear easily as well. Inside, they utilize a 12mm carbon cone driver which provides extended frequency response, particularly in the higher ranges. They have a high-end 32-bit DSP inside which was very tantalizing. That's good stuff for any system, let alone a pair of earbuds. The outer surface offers limited touch controls that can be set up via the app. which I will discuss later. They are IP54 rated which isn't the best but should provide some decent splash protection...not sure they are sweat proof. They offer Bluetooth 5.4 which should be good for a very stable connection along with extended range. They support AptX Lossless, AptX Adaptive, AptX Classic, AAC and SBC codecs which is fantastic. They have auto-adaptive ANC that is monitored by 3 microphones per earbuds. It can be turned off and on along with a transparency function via touch control or through the app. -Battery life is quite good at 6.5 hours per charge and an additional 13.5 hours provided by the charging case. The charging case can be charged via USB C or wirelessly on Qi charging pads, which I have been using. - Smart Streaming Case: The charging case acts as a retransmitter for various premium streaming services (Qobuz, Tidal, deezer, etc.) which can be linked in the app. I am not exactly sure how this works but apparently it's an industry first. I linked one of my accounts and can use it via the B&W app directly. Hopefully they will explain more about this feature in the near future. -Sound quality: The carbon driver may actually make a noticeable difference. I listened to several genres of music and the higher frequency sounds are less harsh or tinny. The bass is not too strong or overbearing like some other manufacturers. The B&W app has a custom equalizer function where you can fine tune the sound to your particular liking. Now the not so good stuff: -The provided silicone ear tips. They are very ineffective at sound isolation and luckily I had some premium foam ear tips that fit. The sound difference was night and day. I would think that at this price point, B&W would have already made that decision to add premium foam tips. -No spatial audio. B&W hasn't developed their own version of spatial audio as of yet, and it's unfortunate. Spatial audio does make a huge difference in the listening experience and I have it on a couple of other sets of earbuds I already own. I also assumed it or something like it would be included at this price point. -Touch controls are VERY limited. You can't control the ANC functions and the volume control at the same time. The app only allows you select EITHER controls for ANC or volume control. That is a very poor decision on B&W's behalf. ALL of my existing earbuds offer both of these functions to co-exist on the earbuds at the same time. I need to have both available as I use them both when Im walking or riding my bike. Not sure if a future firmware will address this but it seriously needs to be changed. -Auto-Adaptive ANC. It's just not that powerful compared to others on the market. Its not awful but it certainly could be better, again at this price point. B&W also needs to create an anti-wind option for times like walking or riding outdoors. A couple of my existing earbuds do offer that ANC function and it makes a huge difference. I used these Pi8s on a few bike rides and it wasn't the best experience. - Multi-point connection. I had a very difficult time getting 2 devices (phone an watch) to be set up and control the earbuds properly. It was a shot in the dark as to which one was running the show..one moment the phone accessed the earbud controls, ,then a moment later, it was the watch. Not fun. Hopefully this can be addressed in an app update of some sort. -Sound quality: As I mentioned above these do sound good, but again at this price point I expected more and they could sound better. They lack separation and depth like another pair of earbuds I already have and maybe Im just spoiled now from them. Music sounds a touch muddy as the separation is lacking. The highs are nice but I wish the bass had more depth. Overall they sound too flat even with the app's custom equalizer set up. Im sorry say it B&W, but they're a little disappointing. Overall these are some very finely made, high quality earbuds that just don't match some of the other competitors out there that cost less money. Im hoping B&W tweaks some things via app and firmware updates to refine them to be their best.

I’ve enjoyed several pairs of top quality earbuds in recent years, but these Pi8’s are in a league of their own. From the moment I popped them effortlessly into my ears & selected my favorite “testing music”, I was stunned. I’m amazed that 2 little earbuds are able to put out the high sound quality that you would only expect from full over-the-ear superior headphones. Out of the box, I topped them off with a 30 minute charge. I downloaded the Bowers & Wilkins Music App. It requires that you create an account using your email (Most Apps don’t require this, so it’s an extra burden to add yet another code to my password manager). Pairing was fast & easy with my Android phone and I’ve had no connectivity issues. - Comfortable fit. The out-of-the-box eartips were the perfect size, but 3 additional sizes (L, S, XS) are included if those are not a good fit. They look very sleek, sit almost flush with the ear & barely stick out. The new design of the Pi8’s is a major improvement over the Pi7’s. They’re very comfortable & I never have to adjust them or push them in like some of my others. I also don’t have to twist or screw them in to get a better fit. - Sound quality is off the charts rich, full, balanced & clean! I feel fully immersed in the music with these buds unlike any other. I can hear strings with clarity that I’m never able to detect on my other high-end buds. And finally, these Pi8’s put out the warm full bass that I’ve been looking for, for years. - B&W App - Although the App is not mandatory, I would definitely recommend downloading & creating an account to use it. It’s not full of features, but it gives you the needed basics to truly enjoy your buds like: Battery charge %, Noise Cancellation options, touch control customization & most importantly…the equalizer. Overall, I would definitely recommend these Pi8’s for true music enjoyment. They offer the best sound quality of any buds I’ve ever owned.