Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) has unveiled Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 wi-fi earbuds, promising the brand new fashions will repair our greatest downside with their predecessors, the Pi7 and Pi5.
Here is what it’s good to know.
Worth and launch date
The buds are the second era of Bowers and Wilkins’ Pi collection of true wi-fi earbuds. The Pi7 S2 is the extra premium of the 2 and is on the market now, retailing for £349 / $399 / AU$700 at choose shops. The pricing is equivalent to the unique Pi7, which retailed for £350 /$399 / AU$599 at launch in 2021, and is on the expensive finish for wi-fi buds.
The Pi5 S2 retail for a barely extra modest £249 / $299 / €299 / AU$450 and is ready to launch at an unspecified level in Spring 2023.
This places them in sq. competitors with a number of the greatest wi-fi earbuds we have examined at that value, together with the award-winning Sony WF-1000XM4 and Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II and the five-star Apple AirPods Professional 2.
design
The Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 each look comparatively just like B&W’s earlier era earbuds, that includes spherical sides and a raised semi-circular outer case housing the buds’ capacitive contact controls.
The one distinction we have seen is that the Pi7 S2 is on the market in Satin Black, Canvas White and Midnight Blue. In the meantime, the Pi5 S2 might be obtainable in Cloud Gray, Storm Gray, Spring Lilac and Sage Inexperienced choices.
We’ll have an interest to see how the brand new units carry out once we get them in for testing, as Bowers and Wilkins claims it has fastened the most important points we encountered reviewing the older Pi7.
Particularly, the corporate claims it has prolonged each units’ battery lives to 5 hours value of listening, made “big” enhancements to audio high quality, and stuck the connectivity points we skilled utilizing the B&W Pi7 in 2021.
The latter is especially vital with the unique Pi7 having an inclination to drop out, particularly in busy sign areas like rail stations, throughout our time with them. This challenge is a key motive our reviewers gave them 3/5 stars, regardless of the Pi7 providing “clear, agile, insightful sound” throughout our exams.
We have requested B&W for additional insights on what particular work it is finished to repair the problems however have not heard again on the time of publishing. The one technical declare regarding connectivity within the launch, exterior of it being usually improved “by way of a re-engineered antenna design”, is that each buds now have an extended Bluetooth vary of 25m.
Outdoors of this, the Pi7 S2 additionally has a barely extra premium characteristic set than the bottom Pi5 S2.
B&W Pi7 S2 vs Pi5 S2: What is the distinction?
The Pi7 S2 are B&W’s flagship wi-fi earbuds and supply options and enhancements you will not discover on the Pi5 S2. For starters, they proceed to help the Qualcomm aptX Adaptive codec.
This implies they will stream high-resolution music, from suitable hi-res music streaming providers like Tidal, in as much as 24-bit/48kHz audio high quality.
Additionally they come loaded with 9.2mm bespoke Bowers & Wilkins drive items. These are paired with a high-frequency “balanced armature” driver, and every of the 4 drive items is pushed by its personal amplifier.
In the meantime, the brand new Pi5 S2 includes a single 9.2mm bespoke drive unit in every earbud and helps as much as CD-quality (16-bit/44.1kHz) streaming due to their help for aptX wi-fi transmission codec.
Each fashions have a unique mic setup and energetic noise-cancellation (ANC) powers. The Pi7 S2 has a six mic setup – three in every bud. The Pi5 S2 has a twin mic setup in every bud. So on paper, the Pi7 ought to supply higher name high quality, although we might want to check them to verify in real-world use.
The Pi7 S2 are the one set of the 2 to supply Adaptive ANC, the place the buds monitor your environment and tweak their settings accordingly to take care of the exterior noise the mics detect.
The one different distinction is that the Pi5 S2 case holds extra cost. Regardless of each buds being listed as providing 5 hours of listening, the Pi5 S2 case carries a quoted 19 hours of cost, whereas the extra premium Pi7 S2 carries an extra 16 hours. The distinction is probably going pushed by the dearer set’s improved, power-hungry {hardware} and streaming capabilities.
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