Bowers & Wilkins P7

[amirm]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Bowers & Wilkins P7. It was kindly donated by a member. It is discontinued by was launched at $400 (on ebay for half now).

The feel and look are unique. The cups are small for my use and for measurements. On the latter, it was highly sensitive to positioning in lower and upper bass. Slightest change would make a massive difference.

Company has moved on to a wireless version of the P7.

Bowers and Wilkins (B&W) P7 Headphone Measurement
As usual, I measured the P7 using the GRAS 45CA fixture and my Audio Precision analyzer. Here is the headphone frequency response and comparison against our target:

I was quite surprised by the overload in bass. Where they going after Beats like everyone else was a decade back? There is also some bloating past midrange so perhaps that kind of balances it.

Gross EQ development should not be hard given the large deviation from target:

I would center a low Q one around 150 Hz and another by 1.3 kHz and call it done.

The small drivers seem to have serious problem with high SPL levels:

And unfortunately the distortion is where our hearing is most sensitive. Bass is not an issue since we would be lowering the levels there anyway.

The small cup is not allowing the sound to bounce around too much and hence the cleaner Group Delay:

Impedance is very low (hence, current is required to make it loud, not voltage):

Fortunately the P7 is very sensitive so just about any source should be able to drive it to reasonable loudness:

I didn't have time to listen to it. I explained how I would EQ it above and results would be very predictable (much improvement).

Conclusions
Assuming my assumption was that they were chasing Beats at the time, it makes sense why the P7 is tuned the way it is. You would think however that a higher end company wouldn't chase such mass market targets but they did. I can't recommend the P7 even without listening. There are so many other good choices of good headphones.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

 

[beeface]

Thanks Amir. Just to be clear, is this a P5 or P7? You refer to both models in your review

 

[JSmith]

Meh... plenty of other options for the price.

Bowers & Wilkins P5

Did you mean P7 there?

Thanks for the testing, some pics (assuming it's P7);

JSmith

 

[amirm]

Thanks Amir. Just to be clear, is this a P5 or P7? You refer to both models in your review

It is the P7.

 

[amirm]

Here is the P5 Review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s-wilkins-p5-review-portable-headphone.20337/

 

[Michael Fidler]

THD right in the 'presence band'. I'm not sure what the intended application is, but it looks like portable audio, bearing in mind the low impedance and high sensitivity. The P5 looks quite a bit cleaner.

Probably more of a 'lifestyle' product?

 

[adc]

Curious! I perceived the P7 to have a very forward midrange (which seems borne out by the emphasis from 1-2kHz), but quite "dark", with apparent notches on the high end such that I really noticed missing material (*). Warm for sure, but I didn't think they were overly bassy; possibly that means my particular positioning didn't emphasize it, as you noted they're quite sensitive to that.

(*) My easily-reproducible test case is Air Supply's "Lost In Love". There's a soft "ding" at :05 that is simply not audible on the P7. Granted, my ears don't pick that up as easily as they used to, but I can definitely still hear it on the Sennheiser HD620S.

 

[adc]

And I never listened at anything close to that SPL, so the distortion didn't rear it's head.

 

[amirm]

The large and broad excess bass will definitely sound darker as the treble will seem depressed compared to it.

 

[gamerpaddy]

View attachment 475633

B&W with these type of drivers are the PA5's of headphones.

these drivers are prone to failure, they all have a design flaw that hasnt been fixed in years.
the wires connecting the body to the voice coil are routed in a way that they break someday, the more bass you listen too, the quicker they break.
those drivers are used in P and PX series, like PX7 PX8, mclaren edition etc.

i would avoid B&W headphones at any cost.

i know a german recycling company that has metal boxes full of them, all either hinges snapped or one side went silent. hundreds if not thousands of units.
they are also sold on ebay defective en mass. much more than sony and bose models, but i doubt those two are sold less than b&w's, they just have a much higher failure rate

bose had the same issue on their qc25 series, but not the previous 15 and 35 and later ones.

in detail (with clear membranes to better see: look where the thin copper wire goes
on the bad ones it goes straight out at where the membrane has its flex surround part near he outter ring.
tight bend radius....this is where it snaps 99.99% of the time.

later models that doesnt have this issue use drivers like these:
the wire is routed in a way that it twists instead, when the membrane moves, this is much better.
have not seen one failure so far.

 

[Chester]

These were aimed at tossers like me who wanted to look a little more fancy on their daily commute into London. These were the headphones that got me into all this though so they still hold a special place in my heart.

I do remember carefully listening to the other high street available offerings at the time from Bose and such and thinking these sounded the best. I was naive and most likely influenced by their looks and build. The superficial build quality is quite high on these.

 

[gamerpaddy]

just took apart a broken PX5 which uses the same driver style, just a little smaller (35mm) and with a different back magnet.

notice the wire snaps where its glued (red residue) to the voice coil bobbin, it flops around with this being the tightest bending point

 

[RogerSmith]

Bought these more than 10 years ago when I was getting into hifi (and didn't know about headphone measurements). Still like the design, but that is the point, it is more a lifestyle product than a serious headphone. Look and touch are fine, comfort not so much, sound meh. These were my closed ones, readily got the HD 650 afterwards and some Staxes... But I have no quality issue, although I use them rarely, my wife does from time to time and they are still running fine, also I was never able to hear really marked distortion.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Thanks, @amirm

Ten years ago, I bought one and kept it for a couple of weeks. I had some insane deal at 150€ (was 399€ MSRP) for a refurbished/like-new sample.

The build and finishes were top notch (all metal and real leather), but I really disliked both the comfort and the sound (isolation also lacked for some nomad cans). I ended up by selling it blazing fast for 200€... So, the only good side of these headphones for me is that I made 50€ out of them.

 

[Heinrich]

Looks like they just wanted to complement their speaker line.

 

[DanielT]

Thanks for the review Amir.

I bought a pair of Bowers & Wilkins P7 used, without testing them before buying, a couple of years ago and I really agree with you when you say:The cups are small ...

Small and not comfortable. I sold them immediately.

 

[Robbo99999]

First thing I think of when I see that frequency response is large middbass hump and greatly reduced treble above 2kHz. I'd bet they give you good bass impact if you can get them to fit you properly, but little else I'd estimate. I suppose it wouldn't sound that off though as mids up to 2kHz would be ok. But difficult fitment issues would make this no go too - small cup closed backs = nightmare for most people. I've got a NAD HP50 headphone though which reminds me of this one in terms of closed back and small earcups and I could get that to sound good if placed properly on my head but I've got pretty small ears, also the HP50 has a lot better frequency response than this one, and also better distortion results.

 

[PristineSound]

I think I have seen enough measurements of B&W products to not be one bit surprised.

They have some good technologies, workmanship and brand recognition, but misguided performance goals, but from their perspective who cares, sales is good from the unknowing.

Any how, let's hope Harman will fix all of this pursuit of colored sound with their acquisition of B&W but then again, Sean Olive has retired from Harman.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

They look like something you might want to take with you if you're going out of town for a few days and don't want to limit yourself to IEMs. However, they're colored and require EQ, they distort at volume right in the middle of the midrange, and they're not comfortable to wear. They do have a nice look to them though, and, if I remember rightly, they do fold up. But the good points do not outweigh the bad. For the same reason Sennheiser continues to make variants of the HD 600, B & W no longer makes P5's or P7's.

Thank you for your insightful review, Amir. You gave this product exactly as much time as it merited.

 

[adc]

But that new-leather smell when you unbox them!

I really enjoyed the forward midrange on these at low volume. I think the first thing I listened to on them was Dire Straits' "Your Latest Trick", and that horn really popped. Used them for jazz for years. I was never able to love them due to the lackluster top end, but it did make them nice for going to sleep. I tried to EQ my way to bliss with a JD Labs Element, but just couldn't get there.

They were a good baseline for me, but I don't miss them. Now if I could just get the HD620S without the microphonic plastic shell .... I miss the metal and leather.