Bowers & Wilkins' New Pi8 Earbuds Sound Fantastic

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Bowers & Wilkins has long been revered for its loudspeakers, but in recent years has produced some excellent-sounding premium wireless headphones and earbuds. Now it's announced two new sets of true-wireless earbuds: the flagship Pi8 ($399) and Pi6 ($249), which ostensibly replaces the company's Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 models. The Pi8 is available now, while the Pi6 ships on Sept. 13.

Both buds feature new, more compact designs, but the Pi8 has higher-grade 12mm drivers with Carbon Cone technology, an upgraded DAC (digital-to-analog converter) and DSP (digital signal processor), plus a charging case that doubles as a Bluetooth transceiver so you can use these buds with inflight entertainments while traveling.

I haven't used the Pi6s yet, but I've been playing around with the Pi8s, and they sound great. Easily among the best-sounding earbuds out there, they also feature improved noise canceling. I'm not quite ready to post my full review of the Pi8s, but here are some thoughts on what initially impressed me, along with a few things that I felt might be a bit better considering their high price. 

Read more: Best wireless earbuds of 2024

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8's, Pi6's improved designs

While the earlier Pi7 and Pi5 series earbuds were praised for their top-notch sound quality, they were definitely on the large side and didn't fit some people's ears all that comfortably and securely. The shape of both new models was inspired by "extensive research into the variation in human ear form across both gender and ethnicity," the company says. Except for the metallic ring around the rim of the Pi8s, the two models look very similar, though each model has its own distinct color options, all of them attractive in their own right.

I got a tight seal with the largest ear tips, and the buds nestled in my ears more comfortably than the Pi7s. In some ways, I was reminded of the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4, which has a somewhat similar design and exhibits some similar sound-quality traits. The new buds are definitely an upgrade from an ergonomic perspective and they don't stick out of your ears as much as the previous models. I'm not sure I'd fully trust running with them in my ears (both models have an IP54 rating, which means they're splash- and dust-resistant); in other words, I got a snug fit, but they didn't quite feel locked in.

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Both models have capacitive touch controls, and during my tests with the Pi8, they worked well and were responsive. Using Bowers & Wilkins' updated Music app for iOS and Android, you can customize the tap-and-hold gesture for each bud, choosing between volume controls or ANC/transparency modes and voice-assistant activation. 

Alongside the "extensive design work put into the form factor of the new Pi6 and Pi8 earbuds," the company says the charging case for both models has been redesigned to make them smaller, as well as "look and feel more premium." While the charging case, which features wireless charging, isn't as small as the AirPods Pro 2's case, it's around the same size as the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro's case.

As part of the buds' redesign, Bowers & Wilkins also says it improved the placement of the microphones on the buds (there are three microphones in each bud) to improve voice-calling performance and noise cancellation. More on that in a minute.   

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8's, Pi6's features

Compared to earbuds like Apple's AirPods Pro 2 and Samsung's Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, both of which list for $250, the Pi8 and Pi6 aren't loaded with features. You get such premium earbud staples as ear-detection sensors that pause your music when you a bud out of your ear and resume playback when you put it back in, but there's no spatial audio mode, no hands-free voice assistant option or conversation awareness mode (that feature lowers your music or pauses it if you start speaking and engages transparency mode so you can easily have a conversation without taking your buds out of your ears). 

Other core features include multipoint Bluetooth pairing (pair two devices to the buds simultaneously), equalizer settings to tweak the sound profile to your liking and the ability to toggle between noise canceling, transparency and off modes. There's no spatial audio, which some consider a gimmick anyway. Also, while the Pi8 has a five-band advanced EQ, the Pi6 only allows you to tweak bass and treble levels, according to Bowers & Wilkins. 

Powered by Qualcomm's higher-end 5-series chipset (Bluetooth 5.4), the Pi8 supports the AAC audio codec along with Qualcomm's AptX Adaptive and AptX Lossless (the Pi6 supports AptX Adaptive but not AptX Lossless), which allows streaming of high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz audio over Bluetooth with the right hardware and streaming service. The problem with AptX Adaptive and AptX Lossless is that few mainstream smartphones, like Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices, support those audio codecs and default to the AAC audio codec (used by iPhones) instead. For most people, AAC is just fine, but some folks say they can hear a difference when using the advanced versions of AptX, particularly with high-end earbuds and headphones.     

As with the Pi7 S2 buds, you can connect the Pi8's charging case to any audio device with a 3.5mm headphone jack or USB-C port, including computers and smartphones with USB-C, such as the latest iPhones, and stream audio from the case to the buds. That's one way to get around the device limitations of AptX Adaptive and Lossless, as the case supports those codecs for streaming out.

The Qualcomm chipset that powers the buds does support LE Audio. That said, currently, Bowers & Wilkins hasn't enabled the new Auracast feature, which allows you to hear Bluetooth audio broadcast in certain public places. Auracast is still quite new and in very limited use, but it should be more widely available in the future.

Noise-canceling initial impressions

Noise-canceling has a tendency to impact sound quality. As a result, Bowers & Wilkins has always put sound quality ahead of noise-canceling performance, so you're just not going to get the best noise-canceling. While the noise-canceling does seem slightly improved from the Pi7 S2's (I used the Pi8 in the streets of New York and on the subway), the buds still don't muffle noise quite as well as buds from Apple, Sony and Bose, which all have top-notch noise-canceling performance. Some of these improvements are likely due to the new buds' upgraded design and getting a better seal. But microphone positioning and upgraded algorithms are also in the mix. 

I also thought the transparency mode (sometimes called ambient sound or awareness mode) sounded pretty natural. I'm still evaluating the noise-canceling and transparency modes and comparing them to those of other premium buds, so I'll reserve the final judgment for my full review.

Sound quality

As with the Pi7 S2, the primary reason to consider forking out $399 for these buds is for their sound quality. There's no doubt the Pi8 delivers some of the best sound available in true-wireless earbuds. They just sound really clean and accurate with well-defined bass and nice openness (a wide sound stage). That gives your music depth and texture, revealing details you may not be used to hearing with lesser buds. 

I'll discuss sound quality in depth in my full review, comparing it to that of other premium buds, but that really sums up what you get with the sound in a nutshell. When it comes to sound, these are reference-quality buds -- so long as you get a tight seal with the ear tips, of course. 

As for the Pi6's sound quality, I didn't get a chance to listen to those yet, but Bowers & Wilkins says they have 12mm bio-cellulose drive units, based on the technology used in the company's Px7 S2e headphones, and feature comparable sound to the Pi7 S2, its former flagship buds. As noted, the Pi8 have higher-grade 12mm drivers with Carbon Cone technology. That's the same driver technology found in the company's flagship Px8 headphones, which list for $699 but sell for closer to $550.     

Voice-calling performance first impressions

Bowers & Wilkins says the Pi6 is built around the same noise-rejection platform used in the outgoing Pi7 S2, while the Pi8 adopts the technology found in the flagship Px8 over-ear headphones.

It's made it a point to highlight the improvements in voice-calling performance for both new buds. Like with the noise-canceling, some of that's due to the upgraded microphone positioning, plus upgraded algorithms to filter out background noise while picking up your voice clearly.

In my initial test calls using the Pi8 with an iPhone 14 Pro, callers said they heard little to no background noise, but they said my voice sounded a little muffled. By comparison, the feedback I got was that the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro sounded significantly better for calls.

I plan on trying some calls with other phones. At least with the review unit I got, the voice-calling performance wasn't as good as I was expecting, based on what Bowers & Wilkins told me. 

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8, Pi6 battery life

According to the company, the Pi8 is rated for 6.5 hours of battery life from earbuds with an additional 13.5 hours available from its charging case. Meanwhile, the Pi6 is rated for 8 hours of battery life from earbuds with an additional 16 hours available from its charging case. A 15-minute charge gets you two hours of battery life. Bowers & Wilkins says those battery life ratings are with noise canceling on at moderate volume levels. 

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 final first impressions

Simply put, the Pi8s are fantastic-sounding earbuds that also benefit from having a clearly improved design. I'd like to be able to compare them to the Pi6s to get a better sense of whether the Pi8s are worth $150 more, but there's no doubt these are some of the best-sounding earbuds on the market, if not the best (everybody's sound tastes vary so it's hard to declare one set of buds the best-sounding overall). 

Like with the Pi7 S2, sound quality is the highlight here, along with the charging case's ability to transform into a Bluetooth transceiver. Noise-canceling seems improved, and noise reduction during calls seems better, but callers said my voice just didn't sound that loud or clear in my test calls. We'll see if that changes with further testing. I'll have a full review to follow soon.