Customer Reviews
Incredible, March 26, 2010
These are amazing headphones. Everything about them is high quality.
They feel like a well worn hat with soft covers over your ears. The
sound is incredible, with outstanding imaging. The negative, they are
expensive, but you know that already.
From the moment I cut open the two clear tape rounds and started to
open the box, I knew these were special. Oddly, Apple had them put a peg
board hanger on the box - yes these headphones hung on a rack like any
cheap old Apple accessory in the store. Inside the box, the headphones
are nestled in a carbon fiber looking velveteen covered plastic holder.
They lift out easily and the instruction manual (more like advertising
literature for B&W), the straight audio cable, and 1/4 inch
headphone adapter were underneath. A really beautiful black cloth case
with a diamond weave is included. The interior is suede, and the flap is
held closed with an invisible magnet. There's also a small pouch inside
that exactly fits an iPod or iPhone, sweet.
The headphones themselves are beautiful. The black leather (they do
make a big deal out of this being sheep's leather) cover over the
headband and ear pieces is flawless. There is ample foam padding all
around for the top of your head and ears. The metal swivel, headband,
and speaker covers are machined beautifully and are heavy duty.
The headphone wire is interchangeable. Remove the left ear piece
cover to reveal a jack and the headphone wire. The headphones come with
two different wires, one with a microphone and iPod controls, and the
other straight through. The little strain relief holds the wire snug.
Unless you exchanged these wires every single day, that relief is never
going to harm the wire. The great news about this arrangement, if the
wires ever broke, it is a simple matter to replace them - both ends of
the wire are 3.5mm jacks. The headphone wire is decent, a rubbery
insulation, that looks like it will survive a good long bit of wear. May
22, 2010 update - a reader has mentioned that one end of the cable is
2.5mm and the other 3.5mm, so this might not be a super easy cable to
replace.
These headphones feel fantastic on my head. I have a rather large
pointy bald head (go ahead, conehead jokes are allowed) and a lot of
over the ear headphones are uncomfortable. The P5's are just about
perfect. The band expands large enough and the padding is thick enough
that the top of my head isn't pressured. Over the ear is comfortable.
Oh you don't care about all these cosmetics, other than you don't
want to look like a Bose lemming on your next flight (and these
headphones are handsome compared to those by Bose). You care about the
audio quality. I was stunned. The bass is solid and smooth. Vocals were
crystal clear. These are warm speakers, there is good bass but it is not
overpowering. The response seems to be very smooth across the full tone
range - highs and lows were not emphasized. The first thing I noticed
was imaging. In recordings that I thought were not good, I could
actually pick out and position instruments that were blended across the
soundstage before. These are audiophile grade headphones.
My frame of reference is five years with a pair of Shure E3c's.
Those are absolutely crystal clear, accurate, efficient speakers. The
downside, they don't deliver much bass. The P5's are nowhere near as
bright; they are not sharp and crisp in the high end like the E3c's. But
they make up for that in warmth, in some ways the P5's are like adding a
subwoofer to my Shures. The P5's are not as efficient, they require
about 2 notches more to reach the same volume. On my Sony DVD player,
the E3c's are perfect volume at 1, the P5's need to be set at 3 or 4.
There is still plenty of room to get huge volume out of the P5's.
From a music standpoint, the P5's are stupendous. I won't miss my
Shure headphones at all. When I first listened to these headphones I was
reminded of visits to the special rooms in high end audio stores, my
eyes moved all over trying to find the musicians in the room. For
movies, these headphones will work very well. Dialog might not be as
clear, but special effects and music are much better. Sound is better
localized to different parts of the screen.
The iPod/iPhone cable has a little tiny in line controller. It is
simple beyond imagination. One click in the center (there is a
depression for your finger) starts and stops music or answers a phone
call. Two clicks advances one song. Three clicks moves back one song.
It's kind of strange taking a phone call through these; the sound is so
much fuller and warmer than through the crummy iPhone speaker. On the
other hand, the microphone is no substitute for a Jawbone or Bluetooth
set up. The only way this microphone thing makes sense is if you happen
to be listening to music or watching a movie and a call comes in.
Sound isolation is surprisingly good. The world isn't as dead silent
as in ear canal headphones, but I was hard pressed to hear much going
on around me. I was aware of noise, but it was muffled and way off in
the background. These will work very well on a plane. There is no need
for crazy electronics to create the sound isolation.
April 2, 2010 update - in the back of a twin engine jet where the
engines are connected to the plane body (some of the loudest jets in
captivity, the Embarer 150) the headphones do a decent job on the engine
noise. It is not a silent world, but much quieter. My Shure headphones
were pretty much dead silent, and I would guess the Bose are also. But
I'll still take a bit of noise trade off for the sound quality.
Overall these are outstanding headphones. They are super high
quality. I expect they will last a very long time. The sound is
wonderful, the comfort high, the materials sensuous, and they are unique
(you likely won't see two of these on a flight any time soon).
April 30, 2010 update - something very unfortunate happened, while
traveling I accidently left these headphones on a plane. The sad part of
the story, United Airlines can't seem to find them. There is a crew
member that is very happy right now listening to my headphones. I
certainly hope they enjoy them, I will miss them. This might be a
cautionary tale, if you are used to earbuds, you'll need to figure out a
home for a much larger package if you travel with them. I really messed
up.
Vintage analog beautiful, December 16, 2010
For the past 3 years my headphone of choice was wildly popular
Sennheiser 555. I decided that I wanted to try something new, not
because I disliked the the 555's, not at all because they were fairly
solid cans. I just wanted to hear my music with a fresh sound, and
sometimes changing headphones can provide that. Let me preface this by
saying I listen to many different types of music. From extreme metal,
jazz, acoustic, hip hop, electronica, progressive rock, so i needed a
pair that was pretty versatile. I had a few areas i wanted to focus on
when getting new headphones.
No external amp needed- Didn't want to be bothered with amping my phones
Smaller than the 555's the Senns were huge, so that shouldn't be so hard!
Closed headphones- I wanted to listen to music with out bothering others
Comfort- the 555's were very comfortable
Sound - I wanted more low end, and my Sennheisers didn't have much bass un amped (never tried with an amp)
Because I didn't want to make a mistake and buy a pair of headphones
online relying only through reading reviews, I decided to check out the
Apple Store and do some demoing of headphones there. I ended up buying
the Bose On Ear's. While I am aware of the Bose hate, I was impressed by
the power that came out of such a small headphone. So i bought it .
Needless to say, Bose lived up to their "live sound" signature, because
no matter what i played was excessive with bass. It worked well on
harder songs, or hip hop, but when i played a mellow song, the bass
would drowned out everything. Sounded muddy. I returned it to buy the
Bose Around Ear. While these definitely had more clarity, and very
comfortable, but they had very little low end, very bright and hollow
sounding. My 555's sounded better. Back to the drawing board..
Enter the Bowers and Wilkins P5'S
I came across these gorgeous headphones. The P5's are made out of
aluminum, metal, and authentic sheep leather. These scream class. They
can scream anything but do they scream good sound? Lets just say, when I
listen to music with the P5's they transport me into a wooden cottage
in the woods listening to music plugged into a turn table. They sound
very warm, almost the warmth you would get from beautiful vintage
analog.Sounds very full, not hollow. Its hard to put into words. I am
definitely not an audiophile, the bass these provide are not the over
exaggerated bass you would get from Dr Dre's Beats or the On Ear Bose
but provide a very audible punchy bass. Authentic natural sound all
around. These are the only headphones I have listened to that sounds
like the headphones are adapting to the music, rather than the music
adapting to the headphones. Meaning that the headphones generally stay
out of the way, and you get to hear the music as is. Not with extra
bass, or power boost or what ever else headphones usually EQ into its
signature sound. Its hard to believe that when I play Nick Drake, these
are the same headphones that just blasted me out of the room playing
Meshuggah. They adapt that well. No amp needed on these, just plug and
play! The sound isolation on the P5's are quite good, you don't hear
much of the outside world. The built in iPod volume works as advertised.
Because they are on the ear designed, they did take a bit of adjusting
for me because my Senn's were around the ears. Because they are on ears
they employ a closed design.
Now lets look at my areas. No amp- check. Smaller than the 555's-
Check. Closed headphones- Check. Comfort-not as much as my prior pair.
Sound- Check.
Rating these headphones I give them a solid 4 out of 5.
Why not a 5 out of 5? Well lets just say I will be using these for
many years as my headphones of choice, they are seriously a work of
modern art. I love the industrial design, I love the size, I love the
warm sound, I love that they sound this good without any amplification. I
am going to be a real and say there is more than likely better
headphones out there, ones that sound better or do something
specifically better than the P5's. Personally I do wish they were more
comfortable, but I think I feel that way because I am not used to on the
ear type of headphone. However when you look at the sound, size,
design, and price the P5's are unmatched.. For that reason is why I rate
them a very solid 4 out of 5.
First Impressions, March 22, 2010
I just received my P5's at lunch and my first impressions are that these
are a great looking set of headphones. The packaging was very
impressive and protected the headphones during shipping. I was happily
surprised to find that they came with a leather lined bag for storage.
The headphones are also very comfortable and really do seal very well
despite the small size of the cups. The leather pads are very
comfortable and the headband easily adjusted to accommodate (large) my
head. The metal finish is outstanding and does not disappoint. Sound so
far is amazing and very detailed without break-in time. As with other
B&W speakers these will not hide any imperfections in music or add
anything to your music, they simply reveal what is there. I only expect
the sound to open up with break-in. Package also includes 1/4" plug
adapter and spare cable without the in-line mic. You also get 3 months
of membership to B&W's Society of Sound when you register your
headphones.
