Headphone Reviews

Isolation
Bowers & Wilkins makes some bold claims with regard to sound isolation on their website:

“A closed-back design with rigid metal faceplates and sealed ear-pads ensure that all the detail and dynamic range of your music is kept intact, while preserving just enough ambient sound to give you a sense of place. Perfect for listening to music on the go.”

Sealed ear-pad headphones often have a tough time providing isolation and good bass response due to the usually poor seal on the folds and ridges of the outer ear. I was surprised to see the simple approach of soft memory foam and a compliant leather pad work so well. The isolation was very good for a headphone of this type, and it was quite reliably easy to achieve the seal.

The Sound
I found this area of the P5s performance quite troublesome. The sound is noticeably colored by an emphasized bass, somewhat rolled-off highs, and a general warm tint overall. I would definitely not characterize these as high-fidelity headphones. From their website:

“Listen for Longer: Gimmicky effects like exaggerated bass or artificially enhanced treble quickly become tiring with extended listening. The P5’s natural audio performance brings you close to the sound of the original recording, as you were meant to hear it. Which means you can enjoy your favourite music for longer.”

Well, I agree artificially enhanced treble doesn’t sound like a good idea and many headphones are too bright and fatiguing, and that bloated bass headphones usually suck, but I really don’t find these cans get very close to the “sound of the original recording.” And that’s the troublesome part: I’m not sure you need to given the application.

When I first heard these headphones, I thought, “That’s a shame, they really don’t sound very neutral.” But our brain is a tricky bugger and it tries to accustom itself to the sounds we hear. I think most of the talk about headphone “break-in” is mostly in our heads. Not that it’s “just our imagination,” but rather the fuzzy filters in our head acclimate over time, and our listening experience is both the actual technical performance of the cans and the custom filtering of our brain’s perceptual wet-ware. In the case of the P5 and my particular brain (such as it is) I ended up really enjoying my listening experiences with these cans.

The emphatic bass on the P5 is one of the better-realized lows I’ve heard on a headphone of this type. The bass is taught and clear, and very well extended. I found myself really enjoying the sound on movies and music at the somewhat low volumes where I tend to do my casual listening. I can’t think of another ear-pad headphone that does the low notes quite so well.

The mid-range is tilted to the warm side, but is nicely balanced otherwise. Voices are full-bodies and characteristic, and other than the warming tilt, I find no undue localized coloration in any particular area.

The highs are withdrawn somewhat in an effort to make the P5 a headphone that’s gentle on the ears. I hate harshness on headphones, and the P5 certainly was not harsh. I spent quite a while with these cans thinking the highs were too withdrawn, until I figured out that they are quite positionally sensitive, and that I had to move them further back on my ears to get more clarity in the highs. Should you get a pair of these cans I suggest playing around with the position of the ear-pads on your ears to get the best results.

The intended use of these cans is for mobile applications. On the move, I found the excellent isolation coupled with the powerful and tight bass response particularly satisfying. With the din of traffic around me (and that’s not so easy to find in Bozeman, Montana), I found that I had to up the volume only slightly to get good signal to noise, and that the gentle highs didn’t start to annoy at the elevated volume. It’s a bit hard for me to say, given my desire for fidelity, but I think B&W did an excellent job of producing a non-flat frequency response that was particularly satisfying for the intended application.

I used the P5 as a headset for phone calls quite a bit, and found them quite capable in this regard. Though the bandwidth limitations of the phone lines certainly made them sound peaky, I always found my calls intelligible at both ends.

Summary
While my obsessive desire for very high fidelity wasn’t satisfied with the Bowers & Wilkins P5, my desire for a good listening experience on the move certainly was. The emphatic but tight bass response, coupled with a balanced warmish tilt and laid-back highs, made for a very pleasant and non-fatiguing listening experience.

The fit and finish of the P5 is simply spectacular. There are few things in my life with which I experience “pride of ownership;” my motorcycles, my ukulele, and maybe my main desktop listening rig come to mind. Generally, I’m a bit of a brute and rather blithe about material stuff, but I found myself attracted over and over to this marvelous piece of kit. It simply radiates audio gear coolness.

If you’ve got a healthy wallet, a love of the finer things in life, and have a need for enjoyable tunes and phone conversation on the move, I’m quite happy to recommend the Bowers & Wilkins P5 portable headphone.

For those wishing to get a comparable headphone in terms of sound quality and suitability for mobile use at a lower price, please investigate the: Sennheiser PX 200-Iii; Sennheiser HD218i; and AKG Q460.

On to the measurements ...