Building upon the lineage of its headphone product line dating back to 2010, Bowers & Wilkins has announced its latest generation of its headphones: the new Px7 S3. Headlined by a comprehensively reimagined industrial design, British manufacturer says the Px7 S3 is designed to deliver the next level of Bowers & Wilkins performance, comfort and style.
Px7 S3’s all-new design and profile has been engineered for comfortable, extended listening, with a notably slimmer form than previous models. Bowers & Wilkins notes that even the new carry case is more compact and easier to fit into users’ carryon bags. The new headband and redesigned arm mechanism help to ensure the headphones fit even closer to users’ heads, while the headphones‘ earpads with improved memory foam encapsulate peoples’ ears for long-term comfort during extended listening sessions.
“It’s been an extraordinary challenge for Bowers & Wilkins to develop new headphones able to exceed the exceptional performance and critical acclaim given to our current range,” says Giles Pocock, VP of brand marketing, Bowers & Wilkins. I’m thrilled that with the new Px7 S3, the team has not only risen to that challenge but has managed to set a new benchmark for excellence in the headphone category.”
Px7 S3 Features Latest Wireless Technologies Including aptX Adaptive 24/96
Bowers & Wilkins boasts the Px7 S3 headphones provides dramatic advances in acoustic performance over its predecessor, the Px7 S2e. According to the company, almost every element in the headphones’ design is new—its 40mm biocellulose drive units feature a redesigned and improved chassis, voice coil, suspension and magnet—with only the cone material itself carrying over from the previous generation of headphones. Bowers & Wilkins asserts the comprehensively redesigned drive units deliver lower coloration and distortion, improved resolution and superior dynamics. Like before the drivers are also angled to the listener’s ears to help provide a consistent distance from every point across the surface of each driver to each ear to help deliver better imaging and stereo spaciousness.
For the first time in a Bowers & Wilkins over-ear headphone, the high-resolution drive units are powered by a dedicated, discrete headphone amplifier. This design element is said to provide more scale and energy to the sound to help the Px7 S3 produce wide dynamics and accurate audio playback.
Building on that high-quality acoustic platform, Px7 S3 includes both aptX Adaptive 24/96 wireless technology and the latest Qualcomm innovation, aptX Lossless. Both technologies can automatically optimize wireless music transmission from compatible phones, tablets and computers to help produce the best possible sound quality with high-resolution music streaming services such as Qobuz and TIDAL, both available to stream directly from the Bowers & Wilkins Music app.
Supported by Bowers & Wilkins-developed DSP (Digital Signal Processing), the headphones’ 24-bit/96 kHz high-resolution sound quality, as well as the Px7 S3s’ 3.5mm analog audio connections are also supported, as is high-resolution-capable USB-C to provide connection options for both computer users and owners of compatible mobile devices, including the latest generation of iPhone. Both cable types are included in the carry case that accompanies the headphones.
ANC Supports Uninterrupted Listening Sessions
The Px7 S3 also features what the company says are the most advanced active noise cancelling technologies the brand has ever developed with the goal being to balances effective cancellation of unwanted noise while doing no harm to the musicality of the performance.
Using a proprietary Bowers & Wilkins-developed platform, Px7 S3 features eight high-performance microphones, carefully located around the periphery of each ear cup and working together to deliver effective noise cancelling. Two of them measure the output of each drive unit, four—positioned at opposite ends of each earcup to ensure the best possible coverage—while monitoring ambient noise from the outside world. The two remaining microphones provide voice clarity. Bowers & Wilkins suggests that careful positioning and angling of those microphones enhances performance in the noisiest environments.
When making calls, unwanted noise is said to be effectively suppressed by the latest generation of voice processing technology, ADI Pure Voice. All eight microphones work in conjunction with the noise cancelling and voice-processing technologies to ensure outstanding call clarity.
Other Amenities the Px7 S3 Headphones Offers Include Immersive Audio
For the first time in a Bowers & Wilkins headphone, Px7 S3 will offer support for spatial audio. In line with the brand’s True Sound philosophy, the engineers at SRE have developed a proprietary audio processing technology designed to give listeners a realistic sense of acoustic space and a natural, yet immersive, experience with spatial audio. This new technology will be rolled out as an over-the-air update later this year.
In another first for Bowers & Wilkins, the Px7 S3 headphones will also offer support for Bluetooth LE Audio, complete with Auracast broadcast functionality to enable a single audio source to broadcast to an unlimited number of receiving headphones. LE Audio also includes a new high-quality audio codec—LC3, which offers the potential for higher quality sound than standard Bluetooth audio. Bowers & Wilkins will roll out LE Audio compatibility to Px7 S3 as a future update.
As with all other current generations of Bowers & Wilkins headphones and earbuds, the Px7 S3 can be configured and controlled using the brand’s Music app. Through the app users can activate or disengage the noise-cancelling transparency mode to let in more or less of the outside world; users can monitor the headphone’s charge levels, select the wear sensor sensitivity and define their preferred operation for the physical ‘Quick Action’ button on the headphones using the app. In a significant upgrade the app enables listeners to fine-tune the sound through an adjustable five-band EQ (equalization), complete with the option to store their preferred settings as easily accessible presets. If preferred, the EQ option can be bypassed by selecting the True Sound mode, which represents the preferred audio tuning selected by the acoustic team at the Southwater Research Establishment (SRE).
Physical controls are also included on each earcup are also included, ensuring full control even without the Music app. The revised button layout, which reshapes the volume up, volume down and play/pause buttons to improve their tactile interaction and also relocates the power button to the left-hand earcup, is designed to be more intuitive compared to previous generations. The Quick Action button allows users to either quickly cycle through the Px7 S3’s noise-cancelling options—Off, Pass-Through, and On—or users can launch their phone’s Voice Assistant at the touch of a button.
Additional Features and Availability
Offering 30 hours of battery life with full noise cancellation on, Px7 S3 can reportedly play all day long on just a single charge, while a 15-minute quick recharge is sufficient to provide up to seven hours of additional listening time. Bowers & Wilkins adds the Px7 S3 headphones will be available in three finishes: Anthracite Black, Indigo Blue and Canvas White. To ensure long-term ownership, Bowers & Wilkins has engineered the new design so that both ear cushions and the headphones’ headband are replaceable by trained service engineers.
Final pricing and availability for the new headphones will be announced later this year.
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