Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 earphones review – listen to music as it’s supposed to be heard

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• VERDICT

If you love your music then a pair of earphones like the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 can provide the sort of quality that will do it justice and make it sound just as the artist intended.

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 wireless noise cancelling earphones deliver everything you’d expect from this respected audio brand – great build quality and a truly excellent sound.

They come in three colours – Satin Black, Canvas White and Midnight Blue and a priced towards the higher end of the market at $649.

The Pi7 S2 earphones, as you would expect, from the moment you pick them up exude a touch of luxury and you can appreciate the sleek design and quality workmanship.

The earphones have an aluminium polished cap above the 9.2mm two-way drivers and an angled tip to a fit that’s comfortable for several hours.

Even the charging case has an elegant design and a two-tone look just like the earphones themselves.

If this was a beauty contest, the earphones would definitely make the final, but it’s what’s under the hood that will put a smile on your face when you’re hearing your favourite music.

There is a true 24-bit connection between both earbuds to offer constant high sound quality along with high resolution wireless audio that is always being adjusted to provide the best performance.

The 9.2mm two-way driver units do all the heavy lifting to provide the excellent audio quality.

Bowers & Wilkins has basically shrunken down its high-performance speakers into these earphones to give the listener the same rich, warm and immersive sound.

When you’re listening to music you can distinctly hear an added layer of quality with a wide soundstage that can handle the loudest cymbal crash to the precision a violin string.

The depth that you’re hearing is like being at a concert and being able to pick out every instrument and the vocals in this vast audio range.

And it can handle mids and highs levels with ease while tempering that with a strong and authoritative bass that’s not too overpowering.

And if you subscribe to a hi-res music streaming service you’re not going to be disappointed thanks to the Pi7 S2 support for Qualcomm aptX adaptive which will make that higher quality music really pop.

On the active noise cancellation side, the Bowers and Wilkins Pi7 S2 do an impressive job reducing ambient sound so you can focus in on the content you’re listening to.

They can even react to your surroundings and adjust based on the level of noise around you.

We couldn’t detect major differences in the level of noise cancellation during our review.

The level of noise cancellation falls behind what we’ve heard on the Sony and Bose ANC earphones and the Apple AirPods Pro.

That’s not to say these don’t do a good job but we’ve experienced better active noise cancellation on other cheaper competitor brands.

The Bowers &Wilkins app doesn’t bring much to the table apart from the ability to adjust from ANC to Transparency mode and back again and to see your battery level.

On the earphones there is capacitive touch control to play and pause and skip your music without the need to touch your device.

The included charger case also has an added function as an audio re-transmission system.

The best use case for this is connecting to an external source like an inflight entertainment system with the USB-C cable.

The case will then transmit the signal via Bluetooth to the Pi7 S2 earphones.

Battery life on the Pi7 S2 runs at up to five hours of listening time and a quick 15-minute charge can provide an additional two hours of listening.

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 earphones are available now and are priced at $649.

VERDICT

If you love your music then a pair of earphones like the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 can provide the sort of quality that will do it justice and make it sound just as the artist intended.