Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 Review – Very expensive in-ears

On Wednesday, Bowers & Wilkins introduced its new top-of-the-line in-ears, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8. The set is certainly not cheap with a suggested retail price of 399 euros. It is the most expensive set of wireless in-ears for music that we have ever tested. For that money, we expect sublime sound, flawless phone calls and great wearing comfort. Although the in-ears will not be available in stores until the coming weeks, Bowers & Wilkins already sent us a sample for a review.

Looks and comfort

The Pi8 is the successor to the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 from 2023, but looks completely different. Bowers & Wilkins has completely redesigned the earphones and the result is impressive. The in-ears look more streamlined than their predecessors, without the protruding parts that gave the Pi7 a somewhat clumsy appearance. The microphones and sensors have been moved to a ridge under the glossy black outer rim with the Bowers & Wilkins logo. In addition, the buds are designed in such a way that you do not have to turn them in your ear to lock them in place, which was still necessary with the Pi7. When turning, the built-in microphones and sensors of that predecessor sometimes got blocked by the ear, but thanks to the new design, this is no longer the case with the Pi8. The Pi8 also has an IP54 rating, which means that the earphones are splash-proof.

The charging case is also now much more compact, making it easier to fit in your trouser or jacket pocket. The case also looks luxurious. A large button to activate pairing mode is missing: to pair the earphones, hold a finger against the touch-sensitive surface of both earphones. It does not matter whether they are in the case or in your ears.

At 7 grams per earpiece, the in-ears are relatively heavy, but because the center of gravity is close to your ears, you don’t really notice it. We found them very comfortable and didn’t experience any pressure on the ears. Bowers & Wilkins supplies four sizes of ear cushions, so there’s a good chance that the right size for your ears is included. The touch and tap controls via the glossy black exterior also work properly. With short and long taps you can pause or continue music, adjust the volume, accept or reject incoming calls, and switch between noise canceling and transparency mode.

App and features

You can also use the Bowers & Wilkins Music app to control the Pi8. This app also looks nice, but requires you to log in with a Bowers & Wilkins account. You can also log in with the account of your music streaming service within the app to include it in the Music app. We found the EQ function with five sliders more useful. You can also disable the wearing sensor here, so that the music no longer automatically stops playing when you remove the in-ears from your ears.

The Pi8 supports Bluetooth 5.4 and multipoint connections. The earphones can handle the common SBC and AAC codecs, but also AptX Adaptive and AptX Lossless for 24bit sound at up to 96kHz. In addition, you can also connect playback devices such as your smartphone via a 3.5mm jack or USB-C to the USB-C port of the charging case. This also makes it possible to listen losslessly via devices that do not support AptX, such as iPhones.

Sound quality

We test audio products in a soundproof cage using a Kemar torso with super-sensitive microphones in the ears and a loudspeaker in the mouth. For noise reduction tests we use a monitor speaker to play noise. This is placed one meter away from the measuring torso, measured from the tweeter to the right ear, and is positioned at an angle so that the sound from the speaker reaches the ears of our test head both directly and indirectly. The exact specifications of our measuring equipment can be found in the table below.

With a suggested retail price of 399 euros, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 is more expensive than all the music-focused in-ears that we have welcomed into our test lab so far. Compared to the Sony WF-1000XM5 (or XM5 for short) and Bose QuietComfort Ultra (QCU), which emerged as the best models in our round-up of luxury in-ears last year , the price difference is considerable. The Sony can now be purchased for ‘already’ 227 euros and the Bose for 249 euros. At the end of last year, you paid 299 and 349 euros for those models respectively. Assuming that the Pi8 will drop in price a bit in the months after its release, it is most obvious to compare the sound quality of these Bowers & Wilkins with that of the aforementioned sets from Sony and Bose.

We listened to our two-hour-plus Tidal test playlist, while regularly switching between the three in-ears to get a clear picture of the differences. The verdict is that the Pi8 indeed has a wonderful sound. The sound character of the in-ears falls exactly between that of the XM5 and QCU, as you can also see in the graph below. In this graph, the green line represents the Pi8, the red line represents the XM5 and the blue line represents the QCU.

The Bose sounds very warm and has a solid bass sound, but is less sparkling in the high and mid range than the XM5, while the latter sounds slightly less warm. The Pi8 in turn sounds warmer than the XM5, but not as bassy as the QCU. In the high and mid range we find the new showpiece of Bowers & Wilkins more detailed than the Bose, with a very clear placement of individual instruments. In the latter respect, the XM5 and Pi8 are not noticeably inferior to each other, but the Sony sounds slightly more detailed in the high and mid range.

Which sound is best depends on your taste. Last year we had a slight preference for the slightly more sparkling sound of the XM5 compared to the QCU, but after a lot of comparative listening we find the balanced sound of the new Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 just a tad better. Especially the way in which it manages to combine a warmer sound (than the Sony) with almost undiminished detail in the higher regions is very impressive for a pair of in-ears. In addition, the earphones create a wide stereo image with a lot of dynamics. On the other hand, the Pi8 is really focused on stereo music; you should not expect extras such as 3D audio or head tracking.

Also important is that the excellent sound of these earbuds does not or hardly change when you switch off noise canceling (anc). With most in-ears you hear a fuller bass sound when anc is active. If you switch off the noise cancellation, the sound from these devices sounds noticeably shriller. We also saw this in our test lab measurements. For this reason, we measure the frequency response of in-ears with anc switched on as standard. However, when we measure the frequency response of the Pi8, there is no difference between with or without anc.

Noise-canceling and transparency

Fortunately, you can clearly hear that it is a lot quieter around you as soon as you switch on the noise cancellation. The ANC of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 is very good and knows how to block out a lot of ambient noise. However, the new set with its noise cancellation cannot compete with the sublime Bose and the rock-solid Sony. When we measure the three sets, we see that the Bowers & Wilkins with both its passive (closing your ears with the ear pads) and its active noise cancellation lags behind its main competitors. You can find the measurement results below, with the Bowers & Wilkins on the left, the Bose in the middle and the Sony on the right.

Modern in-ears usually have a so-called transparency or ambient awareness mode, where the ANC microphones are used to slightly amplify the sound from your environment. This is useful in situations where you don’t want to completely shut yourself off from the world around you, such as in traffic. The Pi8 also has such a transparency mode and it sounds very natural. Voices of people near you sound no different than without in-ears and we didn’t detect any unnaturally amplified sounds. However, you can’t fine-tune the degree of amplification of ambient noise yourself, like with Sony’s XM5. The same applies to ANC: you turn the noise canceling on or off; you can’t tweak the function via the Music app.

Call quality

Of course, you can also make hands-free calls with the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8. The call quality is excellent. During the call, our voice came through clearly and undisturbed to our conversation partner. In addition, ambient noise is filtered out very well. This is also evident from our lab tests, which measure the call quality with a microphone test and a microphone noise reduction test. The results of both tests can be found below. The first gives an idea of ​​the recording quality of the microphones, while the second test shows (or hears) how the microphones are able to pick up your voice when 65 dB of noise is also fired at them. Under these heavy conditions, the noise suppression algorithms of the Pi8 are pushed to the limit, but the message remains understandable.

Battery life

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 sounds and chatters very well, but that comes at a price. It is not only the most expensive musical in-ear set we have ever tested, but also the one with the shortest battery life. Without ANC, the batteries give up after more than five hours in our test, in which we calibrate the in-ears to 80dB. That is only about half the battery life of the XM5 and QCU. Fortunately, the charging case has a larger battery with which you can fully charge the in-ears twice. If you put the earbuds in the case for fifteen minutes, that will give you about two hours of extra playing time. That way you can still get through the day, as long as you keep the charging case within reach.

Conclusion

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 is an impressive pair of in-ears for demanding audiophiles with its fantastic sound. The wireless earbuds deliver a warm, dynamic sound with a lot of detail, with which they leave the Sony WF-1000XM5 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra behind in our opinion. The differences are not that big, by the way. The noise canceling and transparency mode are also very strong, although the Pi8 with its ANC can’t quite match that of the Sony and Bose. The earbuds are very comfortable and have an excellent tap and touch control, but the battery life is very short. The battery life in particular prevents us from awarding these expensive earbuds an Ultimate award, but because of the sublime sound an Excellent award is certainly in order.