I will be the first to admit I was sold out on these things! I was drinking the cool-aid so hard with these. I blowed away with the sound, fit, and look of these things. I personally don’t think there has ever been a bluetooth earphone I was more in love with before I got these. I was just so sure that what I had was so great and perfect. And even when I first got them and saw that there just might be some concerns with the battery( the unit has plenty of battery on the case, and yet the earphones that were inside were not completely charged. I pushed on, thinking that these issues were just in my head or not that big of a deal because after putting them on the charger, they charged completely up to 100%. So I thought it was a software issue with the app, but as time went on, I found it that it wasn’t.
I search forms to see if there as setting or something needed like a firmware or something. But the more I searched for these thing, I started to see more and more reports start to come in about the same issues I was having with nobody having any solution or any evidence that if I exchanged them that this would not happen again. So I held out hope that the one company that very rarely pushed out firmware to correct problems would this time. And a Firmware did finally come …3.0.0. It did finally allow my battery to drain from 100%( whenever I could get it to charge to that level) to 99%…98%..and so forth whereas before it would just drop within 1 minute of listening from 100% to 93% , there was never anything between those to result in the battery %. It still has this slight delay in the touch controls and the delay of video vs sound when using the transmission case but more importantly I still could never depend on it to charge completely even after 2 days in the case. Every time I would allow it time in the case for more than a day …when I would pick them back up to take them out…they would be at 93% and still charging.
So when I finally got the Gemini 2’s and made them my number choice for bluetooth earphones, the question was asked…would the B/W Pi8 be my choice for number one if the problems weren’t there? And to that question, I would say YES, but only sometimes, I believe so. Despite the small advantage in sound the Gemini 2’s have over the Pi8, I don’t believe that difference would have overtaking my choice for #1 in some cases if nothing was wrong with the pi8’s and they actually worked as they should and how they were designed. The transmission alone makes them unique and almost irreplaceable, but the fact that the delay makes them unless for anything but music is a serious flaw. But even with that being a problem, I almost could still could see myself picking the Pi8’s still if the battery problems weren’t the issue.
The sound is so good and actually more personal and intimate at times than the Gemini 2’s superior Soundstaging that wider. Sometimes, I want that personal experience vs. a wider soundstaging. Then finally, if that battery could be trusted I probably would pick up the Pi8’s first because they are less bulky in my ears, even though the Gemini 2’s disappear easier in my ears despite the more bulky design look. It’s really that simple for me, I think. The Gemini 2 are my number 1 because they work… AND sound better and feel better in my ears…it’s very apparent. “Working” and “dependable” play the biggest role in all of this. I may just send these off to Bower and Wilkins for an exchange just to see if there is anyway, whatsoever, that I may end up with a unit that works as designed with the battery at the very least. Until that happens or another firmware that fixes this happens …it will always remain in my box on my shelf instead of in my pocket.
Tech-N-Things 