Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 Review: Stronger Build, Sweeter Sound

Instrumental entrances are strikingly swift, truthful that moments similar a tremolo guitar oregon synth bouncing betwixt stereo channels flutter backmost and distant similar a trill from a good performance pianist. Instrumental timbres emergence to the aboveground with ease, particularly noticeable successful analyzable textures similar woody percussion oregon crunchy guitar tones that blaze with other spark.

Tonally, the dependable signature has a guardant propulsion successful the precocious frequencies that makes acoustic guitar and strings dependable lighter. It’s a amusive tweak that adds immoderate benignant points. Bass is rich, pointed, and ramped up, truthful that I preferred to EQ it down a mates notches. Occasionally, heavy hits inactive dependable much assertive than expected, but the wide extent provides a grounded instauration for the creaseless midrange and much whimsical higher frequencies.

Comparing songs similar Sgt Pepper’s “Good Morning,” the S3 stood supra dense hitters similar the Sony XM6 and AirPods Max, with much readily revealed sizzle and layering to moments similar the raucous horns successful the close channel. Standout details similar cardinal clicks astatine halfway right, oregon the puff of cymbals successful the heavy near registry with added nuance, resulted successful details I’d missed successful aggregate erstwhile listens. The S3's wide velocity is besides much almighty than galore models, truthful I seldom needed to rise the measurement supra the bottommost 4th connected my phone.

Whatever genre I played, the Px7 S3 provided a amusive and stylish presumption without the request for synthetic effects similar spatial audio (though it does person it, if you privation it). Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” is lavish and clear, cutting unwanted sound for vivid separation of the aggregate guitars and splashy coloration. St. Vincent’s much modern “Digital Witnesses” explodes with breakneck synths bouncing betwixt channels and bass that throws down a gauntlet of boom.

Nearly arsenic awesome is however softly the sound canceling works successful performance with the performance, providing a stark canvas for the antithetic philharmonic scenes. Even so, arsenic apical rivals proceed to ramp up their potency, the Px7's sound canceling remains a measurement down the best.

It’s perfectly good for astir scenarios, providing a mean cocoon of soundlessness crossed frequencies, but investigating it wrong and retired of my treated workplace revealed little efficacy astatine some ends of the spectrum than apical models. Bose’s QC Ultra, Sony’s XM6, and adjacent JBL’s sneaky bully Tour One M3 each provided amended suppression with little hum successful my airplane drone test, portion sharper sounds similar the hiss of my espresso maker’s beverage frother sneak done much easy successful the S3.

Again, the Px7 S3 aren’t built to supply the eventual isolation from biology sounds. They’re crippled for your mundane needs, but the extremity end present is clear: amended dependable and a slicker design. On that front, the Px7 S3 are arsenic accomplished and engaging arsenic thing successful their class.