Bowers & Wilkins PI7

[What Hi-Fi?]

B&W’s first true wireless headphones have impressive sound quality, but is that enough to justify their hefty price tag?

Bowers & Wilkins PI7 : Read more

 

[MickMcCarthysTache]

Great sounding headphones but I'm also suffering with sound dropping out. It starts to get annoying. Maybe a firmware update might sort this problem out?

 

[Al ears]

Must be Safari because of I click on the link in the first post it goes straight to the WHF review

 

[Deleted member 188533]

Wrong thread Al?

 

[leroy]

Great sounding headphones but I'm also suffering with sound dropping out. It starts to get annoying. Maybe a firmware update might sort this problem out?

Agree. Sound is great. The drop outs were unexpected especially when sitting motionless 3 feet from the source. The struggle is real.

 

[MoreMusic]

Recognized.
Recent wearable products of B&W still sound fantastic though are not robust w.r.t. connectivity. Share bad experience. To my opinion B&W is hurting their brand name big time;
I replaced by other brand costing only 1/4-th of B&W but does not drop out. Neither in-house, nor out-house;

 

[MickMcCarthysTache]

Agree. Sound is great. The drop outs were unexpected especially when sitting motionless 3 feet from the source. The struggle is real.

I have to hold my iPhone to get a decent connection and even then it can drop out. If I pop my device in my pocket you can forget any music! I had a pair of wireless AKG Y50s and this never happened. Seems to miss the point of wireless if you have to hold your device near the earphones! I hope they solve this bloody problem

 

[Realitybytes]

I think these ear buds are great. Disconnection happens occasionally when first connecting to phone but after that a stable connection. Alot better than others I have tried. Sound is fantastic and sound stage very cool. Harsh review by What HIFI but to be expected at this price.

 

[mwhhammond]

Agree with the comments here. I have serious dropouts which is not acceptable from a premium set of wireless headphones. Just had a reply from the Bowers and Wilkins support which just quoted the standard pages on how to improve Bluetooth performance. I hope they can get a firmware update to fix the problem otherwise they will be going back

 

[Vladislav]

Hi guys! I’ve PI7 and I faced with a strange bug. If you turn off “wear sensor” and then pull out right earbud your left earbud stop playing music. I’ve checked it on two pcs of PI7.

 

[Archdragoon]

Just curious, What source did you use during the test and found drop out issue ?

 

[Lucky15]

I have had similar drop out issues. I contacted B&Wand I got some basic standard reply about Bluetooth and bodies blocking signals despite pointing out inahd tested to exclude that. Plus no similar problems with other earbuds????

Service response is rubbish.

Worse luck one fell out onna pier and fell in the water. Trying to contact them to get a replacement bud and zero response despite 2 chases in 2 weeks. Really poor from a so-called premium brand. Pits me off buying more from them. I already have speakers too. 😔

 

[faaqu2]

I have had similar drop out issues. I contacted B&Wand I got some basic standard reply about Bluetooth and bodies blocking signals despite pointing out inahd tested to exclude that. Plus no similar problems with other earbuds????

Service response is rubbish.

Worse luck one fell out onna pier and fell in the water. Trying to contact them to get a replacement bud and zero response despite 2 chases in 2 weeks. Really poor from a so-called premium brand. Pits me off buying more from them. I already have speakers too. 😔

Dude...you dropped it in the water. How in the barreling **** is that something they should compensate you for?

 

[Mark S]

This review is wrong by saying aptX Adaptive means aptX HD when it comes to the Bowers & Wilkins PI17 ear buds. AptX Adaptive is not backwards compataible with buds.

If you own a mobile phone that supports both aptX and aptX HD but not aptX Adaptive, then you will only have aptX.

From Qualcomm aptX Adaptive PDF
"aptX Adaptive is designed to offer exceptional audio quality even at lower bit rates and is backwards compatible with four billion aptX and aptX HD supported devices*. It also supports legacy Qualcomm TrueWireless™ Stereo and dual-mono Qualcomm TrueWireless Stereo modes."

This is not the case for wireless buds with aptX adaptive support and you will only have access to the aptX codec if your device does not specifically supports the aptX Adaptive Codec.

This is from the technical specifications from Qualcomm aptX Adaptive Audio page

"Backwards compatible with aptX & aptX HD in stereo headsets"

"Backwards compatible with aptX in earbuds and stereo headsets"

As you can see earbuds will revert to aptX if your mobile phone or player supports aptX and aptX HD but not aptX Adaptive. A headset will be backwards compataible with both aptX and aptX HD.