Alternatively, there’s the company’s Music app (free on iOS and Android), which also has playback controls but adds ANC options (hybrid, off, pass-through) and integrates with your favourite music streaming service, whether that’s Deezer, NTS, Qobuz, SoundCloud, Tidal or TuneIn. It also includes a very useful 5-band EQ and Bowers & Wilkins True Sound presets. By general standards, the app is clean, logical and easy to use – just what you’d expect.
As far as performance goes, the headline here is that Bowers & Wilkins has come close to justifying the MSRP for the Pi8. Furthermore, the drawbacks (like drawbacks) of owning the Pi8 are both minor and not very focused on the actual sound.
Keeping volume levels in the “real” to “slightly too loud” range allows you to really enjoy the Pi8’s performance: it creates a vast, clear and tightly organised soundstage, meaning that even the most complex recordings have plenty of room for all elements to spread out and express themselves.
This breadth and separation does not affect the specificity or unity with which Pi8 presents a work such as that of Fela Kuti. Gentleman. No matter how hectic things get, the Pi8’s sound remains cohesive and allows you to peer very deeply into the mix, making it easy to isolate and examine individual instruments.
Photo: Simon Lucas
Avoid auditory overlap
With the same recording, the Bowers & Wilkins also demonstrate their dynamics capabilities: there’s plenty of headroom for intensity changes and simple volume shifts, but the earphones are also able to identify and contextualize smaller (but no less significant) harmonic shifts and transient occurrences.
In fact, the level of detail approaches the highest level in every respect: no part of the recording is overlooked by the Pi8, even if it flashes by or is hidden deep in the mix. Nothing is “ignorable” with these earphones.
