It’s been a mere three months since British audio brand Bowers & Wilkins unveiled its second-generation lineup of wireless earbuds, but the company has seen fit to give the more affordable model of the two options a new lick of paint.
Already available in Cloud Grey, Storm Grey, and Spring Lilac, B&W are now offering the Pi5 S2’s in a fresh new colorway its calling “Sage”. It looks quite minty to us, but we certainly like the summery hue.
We also like that (as with the older color variants) the Sage Pi5 S2’s are a slightly scaled back version of B&W’s flagship Pi7 S2 – and that is reflected in the more palatable price-point.
And the inaugural Pi7 earphones from Bowers & Wilkins, released in April 2021, are among the best premium wireless earbuds you can buy for sound quality, despite their lofty price tag – as you’ll see in our Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 review.
Opinion: Bowers & Wilkins offers some of the best-looking headphones around – if you can afford them
The Pi5 S2’s have active noise cancellation with ambient passthrough, use 9.2mm dynamic drivers and support AAC, SBC, and AptX codecs, but don’t support AptX HD or AptX Adaptive like their bigger (and more expensive) brothers – oh, and you don’t get the Pi7 S2’s cool audio retransmission case feature.
The Pi5 S2s include two microphones per earbud (rather than three per earpiece, in the Pi7 S2) for use during phone calls, plus Bluetooth 5.0 compatibility with five hours of playback from the buds and 19 more from the charging case.
In terms of ANC, this step-down option gets passthrough options of ‘low’ or ‘high’ rather than the user selectable scale on the Pi7 S2, but as an entry-level proposition that’s understandable.
The new Sage Pi5 S2 are available now for $299 / £299 / AU$450 from the Bowers & Wilkins site, along with the three other color options.
Intrigued? You can read our thoughts on B&W’s new top tier proposition in our imminent Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 review.
Too hot for your blood right now? We hear you – there are plenty of more wallet-friendly options in our best noise-cancelling earbuds buying guide.
Not sure whether to go in, on, or over when it comes to headphones? That’s fine too, see our feature on how to choose your next headphones.