Founded in the UK in 1966, Bowers & Wilkins has always strived to be at the forefront of high-performance audio technology, and its headphone designs have certainly met the expectations of those looking for a premium experience. Retailing for US $799, the updated Px8 S2 headphones certainly add great value when compared with recent product announcements in the category, all reaching over $1000 prices.
Bowers & Wilkins has proven its case with great headphones such as the Px7 S3 and the previous Px8 model. Updating the brand's flagship - apart from updating the core technology - was never going to be an easy task, and it seems the Bowers & Wilkins product management team understands the need to remain sensible while disputing the premium headphone segment.
The new Px8 S2 headphones have a subtle design update, engineered for comfortable, extended listening, managing to slim down the outgoing Px8 design, and making even the new carry case even more compact and easier to carry. As a flagship Bowers & Wilkins product, the new Px8 S2 headphones feature luxurious Nappa leather on all primary surfaces, while the aluminum arm mechanism with its new, exposed cable refines the effect and makes it lightweight.
The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 headphones are available in two refined Nappa leather finishes: Onyx Black and Warm Stone, each with color-coordinated leather and aluminum detailing. To ensure long-term pride of ownership, Bowers & Wilkins has engineered the new design so that both ear cushions and headband are replaceable by service engineers.
The new flagship model also updates the sound with new 40mm Carbon Cone drive units - the same technology used in the original Px8 - now with a redesigned and improved chassis, voice coil, suspension, and magnet, and carefully angled to the listener’s ears to ensure a consistent distance from every point across the surface of each driver to each ear, ensuring better imaging and stereo spaciousness. They are also powered by a dedicated, discrete headphone amplifier providing notably more scale and energy to the sound.
Building on that high-quality acoustic platform, the updated Px8 S2 includes both aptX Adaptive 24/96 and aptX Lossless to expand codec options. Bowers & Wilkins says that the headphones will automatically optimize wireless music transmission from compatible phones, tablets, and computers when high-resolution music streaming services are streamed directly from the brand's Music app. That's an interesting detail since most users don't know or don't care to configure the streaming codecs used.
When connected via the high-resolution-capable USB-C cable, the headphones will stream 24-bit/96 kHz high-resolution signals, or users can simply connect to 3.5mm analog audio connections when nothing else is available. The brand notes that USB-C hi-res support includes the latest generation of iPhones, which are now USB-C.
Bowers & Wilkins also says that their engineers "are confident that the new active noise-cancelling technologies developed for the Px7 S3 and Px8 S2 are the most powerful and effective the brand has ever developed. As is always the case, the chosen approach carefully balances effective cancellation of unwanted noise while doing no harm to the musicality of the performance – and in this new generation of headphones, the results are simply exceptional."
Part of the updated quality results from using eight high-performance microphones instead of six in the original Px8, and all are carefully located around the periphery of each earcup and working together to deliver the best results. Two of them measure the output of each drive unit, four – positioned at opposite ends of each earcup for the best possible coverage – monitor ambient noise from the outside world, and two more are focused on capturing voice. "Careful positioning and angling of those microphones enhances performance even in the noisiest environments. When making calls, unwanted noise is effectively suppressed by the latest generation of voice-processing technology, ADI Pure Voice. All eight microphones work in conjunction with the noise-cancelling and voice-processing technologies to ensure outstanding call clarity wherever you are," the company states.
Offering 30 hours of battery life with full noise cancellation on, the Px8 S2 headphones will not disappoint its users during long flights, and anyway, they can now be charged for up to seven hours with just a single 15-minute charge.
As with all other current generations of Bowers & Wilkins headphones and earbuds, the Px8 S2 can be configured and controlled using the brand’s Music app. Users can activate or disengage the noise-cancelling transparency mode to let in more or less of the outside world, monitor the headphone’s charge levels, select the wear sensor sensitivity, and define the preferred operation for the physical ‘Quick Action’ button on the headphones. Listeners can now opt to fine-tune the sound through an adjustable five-band EQ, complete with the option to store their preferred settings as easily accessible presets. If preferred, the EQ option can be bypassed by selecting the True Sound mode, which represents the preferred audio tuning selected by the acoustic team at the Southwater Research Establishment (SRE).
As with the Px7 S3, physical controls on each earcup are also included, ensuring full control even without the Music app. The revised button layout, which reshapes the volume up, volume down, and play/pause buttons to improve their tactile interaction and relocates the power button to the left-hand earcup, is more intuitive to use than ever. The Quick Action button allows users to either quickly cycle through the Px8 S2’s noise-cancelling options – Off, Pass-Through, and On – or seamlessly launch their phone’s Voice Assistant at the touch of a button.
Bowers & Wilkins also confirmed that it will roll out a series of over-the-air updates later in 2026, the first of which will include support for spatial audio listening. "Bluetooth LE Audio, complete with Auracast broadcast functionality, will be added later," the company says, reflecting the fact that we still don't know when Apple will also announce LE Audio support for the iPhone.
"We are incredibly proud to launch the Px8 S2, the best headphone we have ever created. When we introduced the Px8 in 2022, it redefined what was possible in wireless headphone performance. The Px8 S2 sets the benchmark once again, recalibrating expectations for sound quality, design, and craftsmanship. It’s the ultimate expression of our mission: to bring listeners even closer to the artist’s performance – and of course, the beautiful design and finish only adds to that real pride of ownership," commenting Giles Pocock, VP of Brand Marketing, on the launch.
www.bowerswilkins.com
