Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 Review

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2, though not the best, do sound good. However, the rest of what they offer is uncompetitive, ultimately providing low performance at a very high price point.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

To assess the sound quality of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2, our panel of experts put them through their paces using our extensive GearLab playlist, covering every genre. Despite the limited volume range and non-adjustable bass-heavy EQ of these earbuds, we still enjoy listening to them, albeit at higher than normal volumes.

At this price point though, we expect much more. These earbuds struggle to compete with others in our lineup that cost half as much.

While the overall blend of frequencies is pleasant, with a rich, bass-heavy sound that adds depth, the treble feels underemphasized, and the gain needs to be cranked up much higher than the previous generation to reach a similar volume. The maximum gain also seems capped at a lower level overall.

Thanks to the Pi7 S2's bass emphasis, genres like EDM, hip-hop, and contemporary pop sound powerful and immersive. That said, the heavy bass can overwhelm the mix at times. We heard this particularly at lower volumes, when the strings, electric organ, and cymbals lack the clarity and sharpness they have at higher levels.

At above medium levels, these earbuds can shine, delivering an engaging experience with crisp highs and full, rich bass. While they aren't perfect, they still perform remarkably well when turned up. You can see how our panel rated the overall sound of these buds in the chart below.

The rich basslines add weight and heft to tracks like “The GLADE” by Sean Leon (featuring Daniel Caesar), “2 million” by Felix Ames, and “Bruise” by Between Friends." This bass emphasis can sometimes muddy or overpower the higher ranges, however. In contrast, the mid frequencies are nuanced, layered, and bright, with enough clarity to distinguish between various sonic textures. They work well with dreamy or emotional tracks like “While We're Young” by Jhene Aiko or “Ex-Factor” by Lauryn Hill.

Soundstage

The soundstage refers to how earbuds convey the spatial location of music. While a broad soundstage is new to sound tech, it's more common than ever for the music to feel like it's coming from beyond your ears. And these earbuds are capable of creating an expansive soundstage that draws you into a vast sonic world.

A standout example is “Helpless” from Hamilton, where the dueling parts of the Schuyler sisters, Alexander Hamilton's solo at 2:44, and the backing ensemble are all distinct and vibrant. Excellent clarity allows you to appreciate every voice, making you feel as though you're on stage with the cast. “Raspberry Beret by Prince & the Revolution” by Prince is another good demonstration of their encompassing soundstage, maintaining impressive clarity between dueling vocals throughout the song.

To complete our sound quality tests, we set these earbuds up on our testing rig with a solid ear tip seal. Then, we played a range of frequencies through them, measuring how well each band was reproduced by the earbuds. After recording that data, we compare it to our frequency response to get a baseline reading of how these earbuds perform for the average consumer.

The Pi7 S2s align with our GearLab House Curve well across the board, deviating slightly in the treble bands. Our experts affirmed this performance, noting that these earbuds sound particularly immersive and have a wide soundstage, with a smooth and warm sound signature. However, the bass is a bit heavy, and the treble lacks presence at lower gain.

User Experience

In order to score the user experience of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2, we tested their fit in a variety of ear types. Then, we tested how well they stayed stable during physical activity and finally scored their app functions and overall ease of connectivity.

Comfort

We found that these earbuds fit pretty well in a variety of ear shapes; however, they can tend to stick out farther than in some ears. This issue seems to be related to how far the silicon tips can seat into the ear canal and is not necessarily related to ear size.

Stability

These earbuds do not have any sort of stabilization wing or arm. While they did remain stable throughout most activity, people with longer hair may get it tangled in the protruding buds. Overall, fitment is pretty solid for earbuds without dedicated stabilizers. Though, due to their protrusion, users will have to be careful during physical activity not to get them tangled in helmet straps or hair or anything that might hang over the ears.

Customization

The app for the Pi7 S2 leaves much to be desired, especially for being the most expensive earbuds that we tested. There are Apple and Android apps, but no ear fit test, adjustable EQ, or location feature. Furthermore, we found that if we tried to adjust the fit with audio playing, it's very easy to accidentally pause your playback.

Connectivity

The Bowers and Wilkins did not fare so well in terms of connectivity, although it is not the worst, with a reported issue rate of 2.09%. We crowdsourced information from 1-star Amazon user reviews to get a broader view from users with different devices, locations, and environments. We recorded any reviews that mentioned connectivity issues and then found the overall issue rate as a percentage of the total reviews to get this figure. This puts the Pi7 on the worse side of average in our analysis. In-house, one of our testers had a similar experience, citing the Bowers and Wilkins as one of the few pairs of earbuds he had trouble with during the test period.

Noise Cancellation

In order to test the noise cancellation abilities of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2, we first set them up in our testing rig with a tight passive seal and played various background noises, measuring how much sound made it to our ears. Then we turned active noise cancelling (ANC) on to see how much more sound was blocked out.

Unfortunately, the Pi7 struggled in our passive seal test, barely showing any improvement with ANC turned on. In fact, these achieved some of the worst ANC of any of the ANC earbuds in our lineup. As you can see in the graph below, these buds can't achieve much more than what you would get with their passive seal alone.

Being one of the most expensive wireless noise-cancelling earbuds on the market, this performance is extremely disappointing. If Bowers & Wilkins had just not bothered with ANC and dropped the price, these earbuds probably would be much more desirable.

Battery Life

We tested the battery life of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 by setting the volume to a control decibel level and letting them play until they died. Their performance was pretty abysmal, achieving the absolute worst score of our entire lineup.

In fact, the Pi7 S2 was one of the only earbuds that we tested to score significantly worse than manufacturer claims, coming in at around 3 hours, with a claimed battery life of 5 hours. You do get another three charges out of the case, but that only results in 9 hours of total playback time, which is around what many of our tested earbuds achieved on a single charge. The one saving grace the Pi7 S2 has in regards to battery is that a 15-minute quick charge can net you 2 hours of playback time. Overall, these are not a great option for any sort of extended listening sessions.

Call Quality

To measure the call quality abilities of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2, we set them up in our test rig and played various phrases out of its “mouth” while playing various background noise simulations.

Unmute and listen to the videos further down to listen to how these earbuds performed during our stress tests.

Under the heaviest stress test, these performed quite well compared to the rest of our lineup, eliminating more of the louder background noises than others and maintaining very clear voice transfer. Below you can listen to how these earbuds performed during our stress tests.

When we put these in an office with lots of background noise, voices remain very clear, and the earbuds do a good job of reducing how much of the background is transferred into the mic.

Without any background noise, these earbuds were clear; however, after a few seconds of talking, the microphone gain is inexplicably reduced.

Should You Buy the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2?

We wanted to love the Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2, but between the notably reduced gain compared to its previous generation, the lack of in-app customization and depth, and the abysmal ANC and battery life performance, these are really hard to recommend to anyone. Even if you love the sound signature, their poor battery life and ANC make them difficult to count on for any sort of commuting or transit. At best these earbuds are decent for at-home listening, but at that point, there are lots of better-sounding wired options. If these earbuds were half the price, they might be worth considering over others in our lineup, but as they stand we can't in good faith recommend them.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?

If you're looking at Bowers and Wilkins earbuds, then sound quality is likely your primary consideration. If so, several earbuds in our lineup out-performed the Pi7 S2, namely the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, which had better sound quality, user experience, ANC, battery life, and call quality (and at a considerably lower price). If sound quality is your only consideration, then we'd recommend checking out wired options like the UliX Rider - 3.5mm which outperformed the Pi7 S2 with more immersive and well-rounded sound and are currently about 1/20th of the price.