Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones Review: Turning Public Transportation Into Theater
It’s 9 p.m. on a Monday and the Chelsea rain is tapping sixteenth notes on the skylights. On the King’s Road, black taxis scribble wet S-curves, their windshield wipers keeping time with an imaginary drum loop. I’m in London, at least mentally. My head is nestled in a pair of Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 Onyx Black Noise-Canceling Bluetooth Headphones, James Blake’s “Retrograde” flowing. My body is in row 23, somewhere across the Atlantic. As the song stretches out, the tenderness becomes architecture, forming air pockets and exposed beams between long pauses. I drift toward the thin edge of morning in a gravity well of weightless pain.
A day later, I’m on a black coach winding its way north from Shepherd’s Bush to North Kensington. I go out to Ladbroke Hall – a real west London brick and iron, an Edwardian shell transformed into an exhibition space which, this evening, feels like a party, like a sacrament. Inside, Bowers & Wilkins dedicates the Px8 S2, the company’s upgraded flagship wireless headset. James Blake sits at a Steinway, his fingers brushing the keys and the falsetto rising like steam off stone. The stage is small and the interval between each muffled consonant and the piano hammer is the size of a cathedral.
Blake and David Beckham feature as brand ambassadors – the soundtrack and face of the Px8 S2’s ‘For the Journey’ ad campaign mapping the sonic and solitary topography of travel. I’m in the middle of a trip, an overnight layover in London while piloting the Px8 S2 through the hustle and bustle of JFK and Heathrow, not to mention the chaos of CDG. The question is simple: is this bold $799 upgrade worthy of surpassing the already acclaimed Px7 S3 released earlier in 2025?
Tony Ware
On stage before the performance, Andy Kerr, director of product marketing and communications at B&W, said the Px8 S2 was the result of 15 years of trial and error, “but there was also a lot of genius.” The company’s advantage, it does not hesitate to say, is that its headphones can be compared not only to world-class speakers playing music, but also to speakers used to help create music (as I saw on a previous tour of the Abbey Road studios, where the B&W 801 D4 speakers are control room monitors).
A fireside chat about shared loves and desires ensues, and Blake reveals that after moving from Los Angeles to London, he installed B&W speakers in his home studio. He adds that he wrote “Make Something Up,” the song that provides the transitional freedom of the Px8 S2, on a guitar he barely knew how to play, an experience paving the way for new models. And that suits the Px8 S2 doubly: headphones, like guitars, are a familiar source capable of unleashing new expressions when revisited.
The construction
The Px8 S2 builds on a platform introduced with the Px7 S3 (an April 2025 set that we quickly awarded top honors in our best headphones for travel). The Px7 S3 is a savvy starter. It’s chic, energetic and at a more affordable $479. But the Px8 S2 wraps an even more refined finish around this optimized architecture, while also improving the internal components.
The Px7 S3 came into its own with a revised motor: the voice coil, suspension and magnet layout have all been redesigned for more agile transients and lower distortion depths. He placed all of this behind a deliberately angled 40mm biocellulose driver under acoustically transparent fabric in a thinner chamber to improve fit and imaging. The buttons were tactile, didn’t feel fake, a silent resistance to ghost user interfaces. The Px8 S2 is the cozy embrace of an even more finely crafted chassis.
The Px8, released in September 2022, has already turned heads with its leather and metal confidence. And the Px8 S2 doubles down on both pretty and practical features. There’s still Nappa leather along the serviceable ear cushions and headband, unlike the fabric and faux leather on the Px7 S3. But the Px8 S2’s profile is both stylistically sleek and electronically embellished, with a new eight-mic array built in to make door attendants and conference calls sound human, not like talking to a fan.
While B&W claims that the earcup measurements are the same between the Px7 S3 and the Px8 S2 and that the foams and stylistic materials chosen do not in any way bulk up or dim the headset, the Px8 S2 feels both slightly roomier and slightly more insulating. And, with a well-distributed weight of 310g, comfortable for long listening sessions. An exposed nylon-wrapped cable runs from the laser-etched logo earcups along a polished trench in the die-cast aluminum arms. It’s a distinctive aesthetic that’s more couture than mainstream…distinctive, a nod to the B&W helmet design elements of a decade ago, albeit divisive for some. Like all things luxury, construction follows strict tolerances, no bending, no fuss.
Inside, a 40mm carbon cone driver and bespoke 24-bit DSP aim to turn peak hours into a private mixing suite. Bluetooth 5.3 with support for AAC and aptX Adaptive/Lossless offers up to 24/96 wireless resolution with a compatible source, but it still incurs some loss. A USB-C connection ensures fidelity never wanes. On paper, this might seem progressive; on the head, it’s monumental. In the mind of Bowers & Wilkins, it’s the transition from high performance to reference, a sonic cut that wears wonderfully.
The Px8 S2 (frames one and two), compared to the Px7 S3 (frames three and four) and the original Px8 (frames five and six).
The sound
Seven o’clock in the morning on a late September day, and the light can stop you mid-step when it hits at a haunting angle that represents the ideal ratio of shine and shadow. Well-tuned headphones can also give this impression. The Px8 S2 captures this perception.
This is how he restores space, not just objects. Transients arrive cleanly; cymbals and hi-hats turn into sighs before they can get sharp…air, not dazzle. Compared to the original Px8, which had a hint of unruly warmth covering the transition from bass to midrange, there is an audible tightening and more articulate timing across the spectrum. The bass is still abundant, anchored, just better profiled. Psychics invite you in rather than asking to be let out. At the top, microdetails give songs a feeling of livability rather than exposition.
Compare the Px8 S2 to the Px7 S3 and the S2 demonstrates composure without fatigue. The Px7 S3 democratizes good taste, but presents a more playful curve. The Px8 S2 has a more nuanced dimension. It’s not analytical, just more resolute…the kind of eloquent-first, forensic-second approach that wins on 15 leads, not 15 seconds.
Take a track like James Blake’s “Limit To Your Love,” a sparse, singular cover of Feist’s original with its subterranean oscillations and high-pitched haze. The Px8 S2 places its under-voiced, widely spaced chords on an intimate, luminously textured stage. It lets the wood and wire breathe thanks to the quivering resonance. Quiet to loud arcs appear continuous. A slight drop in the bass and upper mids of the B&W Music app’s 5-band EQ can grant a bit more openness, but an immediacy behind the board remains the main intention.
Ladbroke Hall, host of James Blake’s performance.
The conclusion
Across the Atlantic and back, the Px8 S2 has proven that it can preserve tone and protect tranquility. And the improved active noise cancellation is excellent, but not absolutist. It doesn’t cut out the world like a Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd generation), or even the AirPods Pro 3. It won’t vibrate you into space like the more bass-enriched, ANC-enhanced Sony WH-1000XM6. The Px8 S2 successfully (re)directs your attention to cleanly layered sound on a pitch-black background. It keeps the tone tidy, whether playing songs filled with 808s or covered in reverb. And the 30-hour battery ensures the perseverance of dynamics.
There are headphones with character and clarity that can offer an alternative for those who want punch with an even more incisive treble response, such as the Focal Bathys MG. But this front-line edge of the upper band costs almost twice as much. There’s an upcoming loyalty flagship from another brand for those who prioritize smooth, spacious voices and surgical tone control.
Where the Px8 S2 really excelled was with a character similar to James Blake’s performance: the ability to put presence before display, to capture attention without demanding it. B&W claims that an OTA update in late 2025 will bring a proprietary immersive mode, without changing the main voice. Currently, the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 headphones stand out for their undeniable mastery of texture and timing.
Shop Amazon’s Prime Day Sale
