Bowers &Wilkins

Px8 Headphones

B&W has been aggressively pursuing the head-fi market, and its range is consistently improving. The British brand’s latest offering, the Px8 wireless noise-cancelling over-ears, bares testament to this. These are, by B&W’s own admission, the best headphones it has ever made. New driver technology partnered with high-resolution 24-bit DSP technology achieves outstanding resolution. They can play for 30 hours between charges, and the combination of aluminium arms and Nappa leather makes them one of the more comfortable models on the market.

At $1,199, the B&W Px8 are not the cheapest headphones going, but we believe they offer great value.

B&W’s 700 S3 speakers have been on the market for some months now, having been released just as our previous newsletter was published. Nevertheless, they deserve inclusion here, because this S3 series is a definite improvement over its already excellent predecessor. Almost every aspect of the speakers — the cabinet, the crossovers, the drivers themselves etc — has been revamped. This has resulted in more resolution, better imaging, a slight sweetening of high frequencies and, surprisingly given the cabinet and driver sizes have more or less remained the same, improved bass extension.

This is the penultimate series from B&W, sitting below their famous 800 flagship, and it is obvious that some of what was learned during that ongoing 800 development has seeped down to the 700 S3 series — so much so that more than one journalist has suggested that the $4,799 705 S3 bookshelf speaker leaves little to be desired compared to the highly respected $14,900 805 D4.

• 707 S3 Bookshelf speaker $2,699pr

• 706 S3 Bookshelf speaker $3,199pr

• 705 S3 Bookshelf speaker $4,799pr

• 704 S3 Floorstanding speaker $5,900pr

• 703 S3 Floorstanding speaker $8,500pr

• 702 S3 Floorstanding speaker $10,900pr

• HTM71 S3 Centre channel $3,199

• HTM72 S3 Centre channel $1,699

• DB4S Subwoofer $2999