Bowers & Wilkins, a British audio brand, has launched its new flagship active noise cancelling wireless headphone—the Px8 S2.
Bowers & Wilkins’ products are used in residential market, as well as recording studios, and the company points out that it has a long-established track record of developing headphones, including the Px7 S3 and the reference-standard Px8.
“We are incredibly proud to launch the Px8 S2, the best headphone we have ever created. When we introduced the Px8 in 2022, it redefined what was possible in wireless headphone performance,” says Giles Pocock, VP of brand marketing, Bowers & Wilkins. “The Px8 S2 sets the benchmark once again, recalibrating expectations for sound quality, design, and craftsmanship. It’s the ultimate expression of our mission: to bring listeners even closer to the artist’s performance – and of course, the beautiful design and finish only adds to that real pride of ownership.”
Px8 S2 Headphones Drive Daily Listening Sessions
Bowers & Wilkins points out the Px8 S2’s evolved design and profile has been engineered for comfortable, extended listening, with a notably slimmer form than the outgoing Px8. Coinciding with the slim profile of the new headphones, the carry case is more compact and easier to fit into users’ travel bags. The headphones are trimmed with Nappa leather covering every primary surface, while the aluminum arm mechanism with its new, exposed cable detailing, provides light weight and optimized mechanical stiffness.
The company states the Px8 S2 is available in two Nappa leather finishes: Onyx black and warm stone, each with color-coordinated leather and aluminum detailing. To ensure long-term pride of ownership, Bowers & Wilkins has engineered the new design so that both ear cushions and headband are replaceable by trained service engineers.
Bowers & Wilkins asserts the new flagship model takes wireless headphone performance to new heights of resolution. Enabling that resolution are 40mm carbon-cone drive units the company says combine low coloration and distortion with light weight.
These drive units the global manufacturer explains, feature a comprehensively redesigned and improved chassis, voice coil, suspension and magnet, and are carefully angled to the listener’s ears to ensure a consistent distance from every point across the surface of each driver to each ear to ensure better imaging and stereo spaciousness. The drivers are powered by a dedicated, discrete headphone amplifier providing more scale and energy to the sound.
Headphones Performance Augmented by the Latest Digital Technologies
Building on its new acoustic platform, the Px8 S2 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, ensuring the best possible sound quality with high-resolution music streaming services such as Amazon Music, Qobuz and TIDAL, which are available to stream directly from the companion Music app.
Supported by Bowers & Wilkins-developed DSP (Digital Signal Processing), the resulting sound quality the company boasts, is outstanding 24-bit / 96 kHz high-resolution content. The headphones also provide users with 3.5mm analog audio connections, as well as high-resolution-capable USB-C connectivity, which complements 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.
As with Px7 S3, the new Px8 S2 features eight high-performance microphones located around the periphery of each earcup and working together to deliver the best results. According to Bowers & Wilkins, two of the microphones measure the output of each drive unit, four – positioned at opposite ends of each earcup for the best possible coverage monitor ambient noise from the outside world, and two more microphones provide voice clarity. When making calls Bowers & Wilkins states the headphones suppress unwanted noise by using the latest generation of voice processing technology, ADI Pure Voice. All eight microphones work in conjunction with the noise cancelling and voice-processing technologies ensure call clarity no matter where users are located.
Offering 30 hours of battery life with full noise cancellation on, the Px8 S2 can play all day long on just a single charge, while a 15-minute quick recharge provides up to seven hours of additional listening time.
As with all other current generations of Bowers & Wilkins headphones and earbuds, the Px8 S2 can be configured and controlled using the brand’s Music app. Using the app, listeners 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. Listeners can now opt to fine-tune the sound through an adjustable five-band equalization (EQ), 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).
As with Px7 S3, physical controls 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 relocates the power button to the left-hand earcup to make physical control easier. The Quick Action button allows users to either quickly cycle through the Px8 S2’s noise-cancelling options—Off, Pass-Through and On—or seamlessly launch their phone’s Voice Assistant at the touch of a button.
In addition, the Px8 S2 is designed to be future-proof. Bowers & Wilkins says it will roll out a series of over-the-air updates later this year, the first of which will include support for spatial audio listening. Bluetooth LE Audio, complete with Auracast broadcast functionality, will be added later.
