The Bowers & Wilkins PI7 noise-cancelling true wireless earphones have been in the works for quite a while, but 2020 being what it was, they faced multiple delays. Now that they’re finally here, we must tackle the question we’ve been pondering for months now: Are these earphones worth $399? Sonically, they deliver deep bass and bright, detailed highs—each ear has two drivers, and this helps the audio achieve richness and definition. They also deliver very good ANC (active noise cancellation), certainly powerful enough to earn a spot among the top performers in this category. Our gripes are minor for the most part: there’s no user-adjustable EQ and the on-ear controls are a bit limited. Our main complaint is the price: $400 is a lot to pay for true wireless in-ears, even ones that promise hi-res audio playback. That said, if you’re able to afford these earphones, we highly doubt you’ll be disappointed.
Luxurious Inside and Out
Available in charcoal or white, the PI7 earpieces and case have a rich, luxurious look and feel. The outer panels of the earpieces are circular, with a metallic touch-sensitive surface, while the rest is matte plastic, with silicone eartips. Bowers & Wilkins includes three pairs of eartips in small, medium, and large sizes. The in-canal fit is secure and doesn’t rely on extra pieces like earfins to keep things stable.
Internally, the earpieces house a 9.2mm dynamic driver and a single balanced armature driver for the higher frequencies. Both drivers get their own amplifier and work together to deliver a frequency range of 10Hz to 20kHz. Each earpiece also houses three mics for the noise cancellation circuitry.
The earphones have a modest IP54 durability rating, similar to the Apple AirPods Pro. The 4 (out of 8) means the earpieces can handle light splashes and exposure to rain and sweat, but shouldn’t be submerged or rinsed off under a faucet. The 5 (out of 6) means they can handle most exposure to dust. These ratings don’t extend to the charging case, so remember not to dock wet earpieces in it.
Tapping once on either earpiece plays or pauses audio, tapping twice skips forward a track, and tapping three times navigates backward a track. A one-second hold on the left earpiece enables or disables ANC, and the same press on the right earpiece activates your mobile device’s voice assistant. These controls are simple to use and responsive, but it feels like more could have been offered, like volume control or the ability to cycle through ANC and Ambient modes. Ambient mode can only be controlled in the app.
The charging case has a flip-top lid and looks classy, with a matte plastic rounded body and a metallic top. The earpieces snap into their docking position magnetically, and with a little more pull than many cases have, ensuring a better lock with the charging contacts. There’s a pairing button on the case’s interior, and a status LED on the exterior front panel. Below this, there’s a large oval button for…purposes unknown. We asked Bowers & Wilkins about it and were told that the currently inactive button “will support a possible future functionality.”
An included USB-C charging cable connects to the bottom of the case. Unfortunately, there’s no USB-A adapter included, so if you don’t have a way to charge via USB-C, you’ll need to purchase one. The charging case works with wireless charging pads, however, so you can go this route as an alternative.
The other cable that ships with the PI7 has a 3.5mm headphone jack on one end and a USB-C connector on the other, allowing you to connect almost any compatible analog audio output to the charging case. The charging case then streams whatever you’ve connected—such as an airplane jack, a computer, or an old MP3 player—in aptX Adaptive quality (up to 24-bit/48kHz) to the earphones. I even added a quarter-inch headphone jack adapter to the cable and plugged it into the headphone jack on my stereo system. Soon, I was streaming audio from the stereo to the earpieces. You can even stream your vinyl collection thanks to this simple cable. It’s a unique extra feature that adds value to the PI7’s hefty price.
The Bowers & Wilkins Headphones app for Android and iOS is a one-size-fits-all app for the company’s various headphone and in-ear offerings. For the PI7, the app allows for control of the ANC (you can turn it on or off, and enable/disable Auto mode) and Ambient mode (you can turn it on or off and adjust the volume level of the mics). The app also has built-in relaxing soundscapes (including beach waves, a campfire, a waterfall, etc.) and can adjust basic settings (like whether the wear sensor is on or off). User-adjustable EQ would be nice, especially given the high price here. That said, Apple and Bose also don’t offer EQ to adjust the sound signature to taste.
The earphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and support SBC, AptX, and AAC codecs. They also allow for hi-res audio streaming from services like Quboz, and offer 24-bit/48kHz resolution. Ultimately, your audio quality will depend on the source material you play, but at least you know the earphones are capable of maintaining a high standard of playback when your source files are hi-res.
Bowers & Wilkins estimates battery life to be roughly four hours for the earpieces, with the case holding 16 hours of charge. Your results will vary with your volume levels and ANC usage.
PI7 Noise Cancellation Performance
The PI7’s noise cancellation circuitry does an excellent job of dialing back deep low-frequency rumble, like you might hear on an airplane. It should be noted that the earpieces themselves seem to provide a degree of passive noise isolation, which is fair game—the same is true of the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds.
When up against higher-frequency noise, however, the PI7’s ANC is able to take out the lower-mids and mids in most situations, but the high-mids and high frequencies make it through without much change in volume. A recording of a loud restaurant (with crowd chatter, dishes clanging, etc.) played at high volume levels from near-field monitors proved challenging for the PI7, with the higher frequencies making it through rather clearly. For comparison, the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds dial back more of the very highest frequencies in the recording.
See How We Test Noise CancellationSee How We Test Noise Cancellation
We found that the earphones can vary slightly in their in-ear fit—it’s always very secure, but the earpieces can be in slightly different positions. This doesn’t matter much for audio performance, as a strong seal is created regardless of positioning so things are consistent from ear to ear, but it does seem to affect the ANC’s prowess to a minor degree. Sometimes, the highs were dialed back more effectively than others. The differences in performance were subtle, but noticeable. Ultimately, the noise cancellation here isn’t the best we’ve heard, but it’s good enough to be placed in the top 10 for the true wireless category.
Thankfully, the ANC doesn’t seem to have any obvious impact on audio playback—lows and highs sound the same with it enabled or disabled. This is the way it should be, but sometimes lower-quality ANC alters the sound signature noticeably. The noise cancellation here does create a slight audible hiss, which isn’t unpleasant (think faint white noise) or uncommon, and is subtle enough for it to merely warrant a mention here. In a quiet room, activating the ANC will allow you to hear this hiss, but in a louder environment, or when music is playing, it’s unlikely you’ll hear it at all.
The app’s ANC Auto mode mostly seems to offer less effective noise cancellation, even when the volume of surrounding noise is high. We used manual ANC most of the time for this reaosn, but it’s easy to toggle between the modes in the app and determine which is more effective for your current scenario. My guess is Auto mode is most effective at saving battery life.
The Ambient mode works quite well, with the app offering a volume fader for the mics (and the subtle visual suggestion to keep it near the halfway position). It’s easy to hear your surroundings with this mode enabled, though it would be nice to be able to control it on the earpieces in addition to just the app.
PI7 Audio Performance
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like the Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the earphones deliver powerful low-frequency response. At top, unwise listening levels, the lows don’t distort, and at more moderate volume levels, they still sound robust, full, and balanced with the higher frequencies.
See How We Test HeadphonesSee How We Test Headphones
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the PI7’s general sound signature. The drums here get some added low-frequency heft so they sound larger and heavier than they would on flat response earphones. They don’t enter unnaturally thunderous territory, but they’re definitely boosted in the lows—Callahan’s baritone vocals also receive some added low-mid richness. The acoustic strums and higher-register percussive hits have a high frequency-brightness to them that delivers some extra detail and clarity, but the high-mids feel slightly dialed back at times. All of this really just means that this is a sculpted sound signature. It also happens to sound great, with a good balance between the boosted lows and the sculpted highs.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop’s attack receives enough high-mid presence to retain a sense of its punchiness, but we get far more added bass depth in the drum loop’s sustain—think less punchy attack, more deep thump. But the vinyl crackle and hiss that’s usually relegated to background status steps forward in the mix noticeably, telling us again that some ranges (high-mids) receive less boosting and sculpting than others in the highs. It doesn’t sound bad, it’s just less accurate than some listeners paying this price might want. Others will be thrilled with the excellent sub-bass response here—the subwoofer-testing synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with serious depth that somehow doesn’t overtake the balance of the mix. The vocals on this track are delivered with ideal clarity and perhaps a smidge of added sibilance, but not much.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, show off the PI7’s bass depth in beautiful ways. There are parts of this recording that actually feature a decent amount of sub-bass, just at a more natural-sounding level than you might hear in pop mixes. Through these drivers, the lows are dialed up to a more robust level that will make purists sneer, especially since the sound signature can’t be adjusted. But those who like some added low-end warmth paired with crisp, detailed high frequencies will be pleased.
Regardless of whether you think $400 in-ears should deliver accurate reference-style audio or deliver the best bass depth and brightest, clearest detail in the highs, there’s no arguing about the range of the drivers here. They can reach down to depths others can’t, and they do so with an articulate response, which isn’t always the case with sub-bass-capable drivers.
The mic offers above-average intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone, we could understand every word we recorded, and the audio was relatively crisp. There was also some typical Bluetooth distortion in the mix, and the mic signal itself felt a bit low, but callers should be able to understand you on a decent mobile connection.
The Best True Wireless Earphones Money Can Buy?
Sonically, Bowers & Wilkins’ PI7 earphones get just about everything right out of the box, though for the price we’d like to see adjustable EQ. You can argue that some sound signatures shouldn’t be altered, but we all hear slightly differently, and for $400, it would be nice to have the ability to tune things to your liking. That said, these are easily among the best-sounding true wireless in-ears we’ve tested, hands down. Throw in high-quality noise cancellation, a luxurious design, and a terrifically useful analog-to-Bluetooth cable, and that $400 price starts to sting a little less. For those with slightly less deep pockets, the $250 AirPods Pro remain a top choice for iPhone users, while the $280 Bose QuietComfort Earbuds are our top pick overall. Neither pair sounds quite as good as the PI7, but each offers comparable or better noise cancellation for considerably less money.
