Bowers & Wilkins Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Noise-Canceling Wireless Review

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 is a luxury item first, a headphone second. You're paying $749 for beautiful leather and a brand name, not best-in-class sound or noise cancellation. Save $300 and get a Sony WH-1000XM5 instead.

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 is a $749 luxury headphone that feels incredible in your hands but sounds like it's stuck in the middle of the pack. The one thing you need to know is that you're paying for the Nappa leather and the brand prestige, not for class-leading sound or noise cancellation. Our data shows it lands right around the 50th percentile for almost every key metric, which is a tough sell at this price. It's a beautiful piece of hardware that's just okay at being a headphone.

What surprised us was how consistently average the performance is across the board. In our testing database, the Px8 scores between the 48th and 50th percentile for sound, ANC, battery, and comfort. That means for every headphone that's worse, there's one that's better. The custom carbon cone drivers deliver clean sound, but it lacks the wow factor or the deep, punchy bass you might expect from a flagship. The noise cancellation works, but it's not in the same league as Sony or Bose when it comes to silencing a busy commute.

Not worth it. At $749, the Px8 is one of the most expensive wireless noise-canceling headphones you can buy, and it simply doesn't deliver performance to match. You're spending a few hundred extra dollars for the feel of the leather and the badge on the ear cup. If pure audio quality or noise cancellation is your goal, your money goes much, much further elsewhere.

This is where the Px8's problem becomes crystal clear. The Sony WH-1000XM5 ($399) and Bose QuietComfort Headphones ($429) both offer significantly better active noise cancellation, similar or better sound quality (depending on your taste), and more reliable connectivity for literally half the price. Even the Apple AirPods Max ($549), while also overpriced, integrates seamlessly into the Apple ecosystem and offers a more distinctive spatial audio experience. The Px8 loses on value to Sony/Bose and on ecosystem to Apple.

If you're looking for the absolute best noise cancellation or the best value, this isn't it. Go get a Sony WH-1000XM5. If you're deep in the Apple ecosystem and want seamless integration, the AirPods Max is a better (though still overpriced) fit. The Px8 is only for the buyer who values tactile luxury above all else.

We can't recommend the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 to anyone who isn't specifically buying it as a luxury fashion accessory. If you absolutely must have Nappa leather on your ears and money is no object, you'll get a comfortable, good-sounding headphone. For everyone else, buying the Px8 means you're choosing aesthetics over performance and value. The competition is too strong and too reasonably priced to justify this one.