REVIEW: Bowers and Wilkins P5 Series 2 on-ear headphones

EQUIPMENT

7 May

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Sadly, my last pair of on-ear headphones Marshall Major White were falling apart (the ear muff was breaking at the seam and falling off), which was (and is) the only reason why I decided to buy a new headphones. I've been through a bunch of Sennheisers, then a pair of WESC, then more recently the Marshall, which lasted me a good 3 years, and I even used these for recording and also mixing.

I generally wanted to escape from the hype (because hype doesn't mean quality), so I wasn't leaning towards Dr. Dre's Beats or Bose (I actually returned the noise-cancelling over-ear headphones because I didn't like the sound). One day randomly while at MediaMarkt, I went over to the headphones section and grabbed a pair of Bowers and Wilkins because they looked so sleek. As I put them on, my ears melted from the comfort. This alone was enough for me to buy these and give them a try. The price point was a little high for simple 'on-ear headphones' for daily commuting use, but I gave myself permission to indulge a little this time (since I got the Marshalls for only 50 euros during a black Friday sale). I also saw my friend's boyfriend had the same headphones so having at least one person in my 'trusty' good-taste network with these headphones it was enough for me to go ahead.

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My first impressions on the sound was not as great as the first look and feel impression, but that changed when I discovered that on my phone that the default Music Quality Streaming settings on Spotify was not set to Extreme (320 kbits/s), therefore setting it to Automatic (Recommended) means that it could be low quality depending on what Spotify decides to choose for you. I had previously chosen this in the settings but after I reset my phone and downloaded the Spotify app again I forgot to check.

After a bit of time I think I will get used to the sound, and I think it comes down to what you've been using before. When I compare the Marshall and Bowers and Wilkins I can hear the quality and richness of B&W is much higher, but somehow I was still used to the Marshall sound, because it masks all of the 'bad' frequencies so you hear a more muffled and comfortable sound where nothing sticks out.

A handy addition to the headphones is the choice of using the headphones with the extra mobile phone buttons or without. For recording music with a mobile phone, I prefer to use the cord without so it doesn't record with the headphones, and not a lot of casual listening headphones have this option, which is annoying to me. It is easy to take the headphone off and switch the cable.