Why Bowers & Wilkins’ Pi8 took away our Headphones of the Year award – and why it was one of the easiest decisions I made in 2024
Before you write, our Headphones of the Year Award is open to in-ear, on-ear and over-ear designs (rather than just cans) because we want to make you aware of the very best headphone product released in 2024 . And Based on another full year of testing, I want you to know right away that choosing the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 as a product was one of the easiest decisions we made all year.
This year, the hands-down Ny Breaking Choice Awards 2024 audio winner announced itself quite late in the game, late August to be precise. This was pretty good enough to consider in the 2024 awards process, but I doubt B&W was particularly concerned about it; it’s very clear to me that the British audio specialist wanted to get the earbuds made right this time, rather than getting them done quickly – and that’s probably why they are like this, So Good.
The observant will have already noticed that the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones won our ‘Best Wireless Headphones’ award, so why did we choose the Pi8 as the overall winner, rather than the household name Bose?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this decision is not always conscious, but is made on our own during the course of our assessment process. I have maybe five or six sets of the best headphones at similar prices as reference products (I trust my ears and my testing, but it’s still nice to have proven leaders in the mix to double check), and it’s the ones I reach for when I am not tests that tend to steal the crown.
Given the choice, I generally prefer the best over-ear headphones – not just so I don’t have to talk to people, although that helps – but I found myself reaching for the black and white Pi8 earbuds every day before I left the house, for no reason other than that they provide the sound quality I really wanted.
Actually, there are other reasons, but to fully understand them you have to understand that sound quality has historically never been the problem with B&W’s earbuds. So when the company finally went back to the drawing board and got the basic principles – design, comfort, connectivity, on-ear controls – absolutely right with the Pi8, it simply made sure that sound quality took center stage. And there you have it: winners.
Then let’s delve deeper into the design overhaul, as the Pi8 is unrecognizable from the somewhat unreliable (and frankly awkward) Pi7 S2 that preceded it. Refreshingly, the company rose to the challenge of solving its older siblings’ problems with both humility and due diligence, primarily by completely redesigning the driver housings (to be honest, much like the equally excellent Technics EAH- AZ80 from 2023), but also by adding improved DAC, DSP and amplifier components, meaning they effectively bypass Qualcomm’s digital-to-analog converter for even better audio quality compared to how most of the best wireless earbuds handle it.
Does the Pi8 also cancel noise, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds or the AirPods Pro 2? For me it’s a yes. The Pi8 has been given quite a redesign here too – using technology from their PX8 over-ear siblings – and however B&W has done it, it works. The feeling of abandoning traffic immediately comes to mind, but without any feeling of nausea in the wind tunnel or being unceremoniously sucked into a vacuum by the eardrums. You now also get on-ear volume control, something I’ve rejected since 2021 when B&W decided to move away from having to dig through my bag to change the volume on elite earbuds – meanwhile, proposals for a fraction of the price could do it on the earphones.
There’s also a notable extra: in addition to the case’s no-nonsense, portable appeal, you can connect the USB-C port (USB-C to 3.5mm and USB-C cables are in the box) to a non-Bluetooth source, such as as an in-flight entertainment system, and it will work as an aptX Adaptive-quality wireless audio transmitter at up to 24-bit/96kHz, turning these into wired earbuds… sort of.
There’s no spatial audio with head tracking and no eartip fit testing or hearing profile management, but the B&W Music app is a joy to use when setting up your various playlists if, like me, your music comes from a few different sources. and streaming services. Whether it’s good or bad, B&W wants unadulterated music to be the star of the show, and I can’t fault the sound quality the Pi8 earbuds can deliver in a wireless design, which isn’t a statement I make lightly .
All I can say is that the Pi8 won because they are now as physically comfortable and safe as they are sonically detailed and dynamically agile, which only makes the solid noise cancellation even more effective. No, they are not the cheapest. They’re simply the best wireless headphone option I’ve heard in 2024, by quite a wide margin – and I’d highly recommend keeping an eye on our Black Friday earbud deals, as any discount would be worth a look are.