Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e review

Hot on the heels of the Px7 S2, Bowers & Wilkins has released the Px7 S2e, which brings some under-the-hood refinements to its well-received entry-level wireless headphones. The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are closed-back Bluetooth headphones with active noise canceling (ANC), built with portability in mind. This all sounds promising, so let’s dig in and see if these make a bigger splash at SoundGuys than the original PX7 did.

Editor’s note: this is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.

What’s it like to use the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e?

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e arrives in a high-quality, color-matched, fitted semi-rigid fabric case that protects the headphones and keeps them secure in your bag or backpack. In the center of the case is a hinged compartment that houses the two cables you’ll need for charging and connecting to wired source devices. The headphones’ ear cups rotate to lay flat in the carrying case.

The 309-gram weight is well distributed between the memory foam ear pads and headband, making it easy to forget about wearing them. If, like me, you’ve ever experienced the loud bang of your headphones hitting on a door or other obstacle before, you’ll appreciate how low profile the ear cups on Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e are. The fabric-covered headband has a nice, firm sliding action, and the metal components lend a sturdy, high-quality feel. Color options are Cloud Grey, Ocean Blue, Forest Green, and Anthracite Black.

A single small LED on the back of the right ear cup acts as a multipurpose indicator for battery status, Bluetooth, and incoming calls. While you can use the headphones wirelessly or wired with an analog or digital (USB) source, you get no sound if the battery is fully depleted.

How do you control the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e?

All controls are on the backs of the ear cups, making them easy to access with your thumbs while maintaining a clean appearance when viewed from the front side. The left ear cup features a single “quick action” button, while the right houses a sliding toggle, a multifunction button, and two volume buttons. The multifunction is textured with tiny ridges, making it easy to identify by feel alone.

The slider is used for power on/off (middle position) or for activating Bluetooth pairing (top position).

By default, the buttons function as follows:

The Quick Action button can be reallocated using the app to activate your voice assistant.

Should you use the Bowers & Wilkins Music app for the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e?

While it’s pretty basic and not much to look at, the Bowers & Wilkins Music app is helpful for a few reasons. Firstly, as is typical, product firmware updates are made available through the app. But importantly, I found it necessary to change some of the default settings in the app. Namely, I turned off the auto standby that powers the headphones off after 15 minutes of inactivity (I sometimes like to use headphones just for their ANC for long stints) and also enabled the wear sensor, which pauses playback when you lift the ear cups off your ears (three settings are provided but the low setting worked flawlessly for me).

There’s also a rudimentary bass and treble equalizer, Bluetooth connections management, and Quick Action button remapping.

How does the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e connect?

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e can interface with analog 3.5mm jack sources or digital sources over USB-C using the supplied cables for physical connections. You might think that the included 3.5mm TRS jack to USB cable incorporates an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), but that doesn’t seem to be the case as the cable doesn’t work with other USB audio-capable headphones. When using the 3.5mm jack to USB cable, the headphones’ volume control doesn’t function, instead relying on the source component’s volume control, while other features like ANC and wearer detection still work (although the playback isn’t paused when you remove the headphones, it just mutes).

The fact that you can plug the headphones into a USB-audio capable source and not have to change any settings or lose any functionality to get a high-quality quality, lossless digital connection is a big plus. It is still rare in this day and age.

The headphones are built on Bluetooth 5.2 and are compatible with SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, and aptX adaptive codecs for wireless connections. I found the connectivity to be excellent, although I did run into an issue: after pairing with multiple devices, the headphones would not automatically pair with the last device used (my iPhone); I had to reconnect using the phone each time manually. After a factory reset of the headphones (accessed through the app), they behaved as expected.

How long does the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e’s battery last?

B&W specifies 30 hours of playback for the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e, although we were happy to find we could squeeze 41 hours and 10 minutes of playback with ANC out of a single charge using our standardized battery test.

How well do the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e cancel noise?

Cycling through the environmental control on the headphones using the Quick Action button allows rapid comparison of the environmental modes. Ambient pass-through is what B&W calls its transparency mode, which sounds okay and doesn’t add any self-generated noise from the headphones. Active noise canceling (ANC) disabled shows that Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e does a good job of sealing around my ears and provides an effective barrier to high-frequency noise through passive acoustic isolation.

Switching ANC on brings on the peace and quiet, removing low frequency rumbles with relatively uniform noise attenuation across the frequency spectrum. Looking at our measurement data, we can see that from 40Hz to 2kHz, the headphones consistently provide around 20dB of noise cancelation, which increases to almost 50dB of noise blocking at around 9kHz. While not up with the recent best noise cancelers we’ve tested, the performance is more than adequate for most situations you’ll encounter on commutes or outside walks.

How do the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e sound?

Can you use the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e for phone calls?

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e uses two of its six microphones for telephony, and this function is only available if you’re using them over Bluetooth. Here is how it sounds:

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e?

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e is a no-nonsense, over-the-ear Bluetooth headphone with ANC that sounds good. The app has no hearing test or advanced EQ, head-tracking for spatial audio, and no “immersive audio” settings. But by ignoring those features and focusing on what’s important to most people, these headphones do a great job of reproducing sound while looking more “grown up” than some of the other popular choices that are primarily made out of plastic.

What should you get instead of the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e?

Suppose you’re looking to spend less money, want a more even sound profile (closer to the SoundGuys preference), or want the ability to make greater modifications. In that case, we recommend the Sennheiser MOMENTUM 4 $289.23 at Amazon. They sound great out of the box, have better app control, excellent battery life (56 hours and 21 mins, or roughly 15 hours longer than the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e), but less than stellar ANC performance according to our data.

The excellent sounding, ANC heavy hitter Apple AirPods Max $424.99 at Amazon might be tempting as a higher priced alternative to the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e, and does offer many more advanced features to Apple users. Be aware that a replacement is likely waiting in the wings, so they will likely get heavily discounted and/or discontinued soon.

For something more future-facing with more advanced features, we recommend giving the Snapdragon Sound-equipped Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones $429 at Amazon a try. They offer superior ANC performance and a similar default tuning to the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e, although they offer a traditional functional Bose aesthetic, so they aren’t much to look at.

If you value sound quality and unique design, then the Focal Bathys are more of an ostentatious pick, but we wouldn’t blame you; they are one of the best-looking and performing options available, for $699 at Amazon, in this category.

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