In the past couple of days I’ve been testing the headphones above over and over. The side by side testing is so crazy as you go through it. What you start to see over time is that cream rises to the top eventually. You see, you can just keep with one headphone and be perfectly happy but the moment that you start comparing things, you get in trouble. All your hopes and assumptions just get exposed. So comparisons are bad for those of you that are happy. And this has normally been my experience as well. Normally the one that I had prior falls to the new and new pretty penny on the table today. The B/W S2 is the new Penny on the table and the Airpods Max is the older one. But in this case the New Penny only continued to shine light on the Airpods Max, not itself. The sure amount of things Apple got right about the Airpod Max comes through with blazing colors when compared to a supposedly richer , older, and more respected Company for headphones, Bowers and Wilkins. It’s crazy how a company like Apple can do something like the Airpods Max for the first time and destroy every single competitor in the Market’s landscape that has been doing this for years. Its sad that Apple can make something work like the Airpods Max do for their ecosystem and yet Bowers and Wilkins can’t even get something like the sensors or app to work right.
They have multiple complaints found on the sensors cutting out music found. They have multiple complaints about the IOS app crazing or not syncing the headphones. They have multiple complaints that the app has no ability to address the mid range EQ or have the ability to sync back to your phone if you pair more than one item without manually reconnecting the bluetooth back to the phone. Even complaints about the ear-cups leather coming undone already after 6 months on the market or just simply not having the ability to do both voice assistance and noise control switching on the headphone exist and shouldn’t.
If you are Bowers and Wilkins, you got to be asked how this happens. How a company that has been making headphones far longer than Apple doesn’t have an update to their bugs and software glitches on their app since the launch of the product? Yes, you do well with the looks and the sound against things like Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser, even though Apples Airpods Max has more spacious, clear, and mid-range ability. Apple also does simple things like Phone call quality better than anyone on the market as well as their magical ability to perform Transparency modes light years beyond anything anyone has come up with to date.
This is not a put-down but simply an understanding of just how far off even someone like Bowers and Wilkins is from Apple. The Px7 S2 is one of B/W’s best products released but it’s held back by simple QC and management. There is no world where I release a product like this without knowing I have these kinds of bugs and of course address them before launch. And even if I need to address them after…it wouldn’t be 6 months since my launch and I haven’t even bothered releasing a single firmware to address something so critical to the operation of my product. Don’t get me wrong here. I still find the smaller headphone footprint pleasing. And I love that my ears sit inside the ear cups( one of my most enjoyable designs defaults for headphones to have). I also love the fact that I don’t have to worry about being a clone of every single person at the airport or walking the streets with Airpods Max or Sony’s on. I also really like the Matt Black looks with kevlar accents around the exterior.
In the end, The Bowers and Wilkins are great enough headphones for people trying to buy something more open, cleaner, and elegant over the standard default models like Sony, Sennheiser, and Bose. And if I didn’t have the Apple ecosystem with my Airpod max…the B/W S2 would be my choice for headphones. But if you already have the high quality, fit, and elegancy of Apple and you have the sound, functions, build quality, and mindshare of the Airpod Max, you have no choice but to come up short against them, no matter what headphone you compare them to.
Tech-N-Things 