Bowers & Wilkins PX7 vs Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9: Which to Buy? (2023)

This is the review of the comparison between two premium headphones from two popular brands. The comparison here is between the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 and the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9. There is around a hundred dollars difference in their price range which makes the difference in their features and performances. To know which one is good for you to buy, go to the detailed review.

Bowers & Wilkins PX7	Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Effective noise canceling. Comfortable. Long battery life. Wear sensor technology.	Robust, luxurious build quality. Very good active noise cancellation. Very comfortable to wear for long periods. Stellar battery life.
CONS	CONS
Expensive. Flat-folding design rather than bend-in earcups. No swipe/touch playback controls.	No multipoint pairing. Annoying touch controls. Bluetooth too quiet for smartphones. Expensive.

SPECIFICATIONS:

INTRODUCTION:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

The Bowers & Wilkins PX7 is the successor of the Bowers & Wilkins PX from the PX series. This headphone is one of the premium headphones available in the market currently. This headphone is retailing for around three hundred and seventy-seven dollars currently on amazon.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9 is an updated version of headphones from the H series headphones from Bang & Olufsen. This is also one of the premium headphones retailing for a higher price in the market. This headphone is retailing for around four hundred and sixty-four dollars currently on Amazon.

DESIGN:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

You can fold it in and out as well but it doesn’t fold inwards to make it even more compact when packing it up and just dumping it in your bag if you don’t wanna use a carry case. It folds flat so when you’re wearing it on your neck, it just sits flat although it’s still kind of bulky, you have to pull that out. I did the stress test on this, keep in mind I didn’t try to break these but tried to feel or hear if there’s any kind of weak areas spots that makes them feel less than $400 retail. These feel top-notch, the rotation of the earcups feels smooth and there’s minimal chatter overall, and these feel premium.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

The Beoplay H9 definitely has a super-premium feel to it. It has a cow leather headband, which you can adjust the tension by loosening it or strengthen it. It has a lung skin memory Foam air-cushion, which is super soft and super nice even over long periods of time. It also has a minimal clamping force, which is a key thing when wearing for a long time because you can loosen it or strengthen it your own needs, and also has sliding earpads instead of those resistant clicky ones which you have normally, which make it very fluid to use, and they stay in place very well.

As far as the controls, the Beoplay has the touch controls on your right ear cup which have had some controversial reviews and I agree with them because in the first H8 & H7 headphones, they did not work very well but on this one, I’ve had no issues whatsoever. There are several moments you can rotate your finger to adjust the volume up and down, you can swipe on the right and to forward the song or backward to go to the previous song, you can swipe down to turn off the active noise-canceling, or a swipe up to turn it on, you can also just tap on it to play and pause the music, and you can use use the same chance to recall and also hold on the headphone itself to reject the call. The only tactile button on the Beoplay H9 is the on and off switch and also turning it into a Bluetooth pairing mode or switching between different devices.

COMFORT:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

I never felt too much pressure or pinching at the crown of the head but there is fatigue though once you wear these for several hours straight, for long-term wear and you do feel a little bit of fatigue. Jawline pressure is very reasonable and I didn’t have any issues right there. The cups are soft and plush, they do have a good amount of plush that the ears barely touches the inside, letting just a very little touch tapper at the very top of the ear. I never had them heat up or sweat but I do feel them warm up. So, overall the PX7 is not class-leading but in the end, if you’re leaning towards the PX7 or Bowers Wilkins in general, I still recommend them for you to give them a try.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

Bose is definitely one of the lightest wireless overhear headphones that are found at 234 grams while the Beoplay H9 is not the heaviest, they’re still coming in at 295 grams. As far as the fit and comfort, after wearing the H9 over a longer period of time while traveling at home I felt it as really comfortable as the Bose headphones. Once you adjust the headband to the strength and the camping force that’s comfortable for you, you can equally wear them for many hours in a row and not get that tension or a sweaty feeling inner ears. I’ve been quite comfortable with them so they must be doing something different there or it’s just a fit that makes it different but I do get the pressure very little and very rarely.

FEATURES:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

As far as the connectivity, this does feature Bluetooth 5.0 which is pretty good, and the Bluetooth connection was absolutely solid, I never had an issue with the audio. Testing this for distance, the signal does go through several walls. Also, I have tested this with video and there were zero syncing delays on both Apple and Android devices. The only most important feature of this is it does have multi pairing. While this is connected to my Android phone, I can easily switch this to another previously connected device without the need to unpair and repair either device.

All features that have been enjoying on these headphones is their improved rear sensors which work very fast and almost flawless. Once you take these headphones off your head, the music instantly pauses and once you put them back on your head, the music resumes playing, and it works pretty well, unlike the Bowers & Wilkins PX which sometimes randomly pauses your music. This same feature allows you to quickly hear what’s going on around you, all you have to do is lift up one ear cup and the music automatically stops, then put it back on the music resumes play and it works pretty well.

In the app, you can set adjust or completely turn off the ambient pass-through mode, you can also turn on and select the level of active noise cancellation or completely turn it off as well. You can choose to leave voice prompts on or off as well, and it also allows you to adjust the sensitivity of its wear sensors from my testing it’s best to leave it on normal mode. You can also set how long you want the headphones to stay on before entering standby mood, and lastly, you can get software updates whenever Bowers & Wilkins makes them available. There are no sound equalization settings on the app.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

The Beoplay H9 comes in a contemporary colorful box as opposed to the boring gray ones and all the other ones used to come in before, and it just screams quality all around it. While opening up, the first thing obviously we have the headphones on the top and when we take that off, you also have the carrying pouch, in one of the boxes which is just a soft case, then you also have the cables the three-and-a-half millimeter headphone jack as well as the micro USB cable for charging the headphones, and also you have the manual in a third one.

As far as the connectivity, while it’s very easy to go into the pairing mode, by sliding the power button you can connect to all your devices your laptop, your computer, your phone, your tablet, your watch, whatever it might be, I’ve had no issues with either of these devices whatsoever. On the Beoplay H9, you will have to slide the Bluetooth button again to go and change the device to another one like from your phone to your computer. That’s a hassle but you’ll get used to it and actually not switching that often anyway. The Beoplay H9 supports Bluetooth 4.2 standards which is pretty good compared to the Bose QC35. There’s no new sound profile introduced that will make a massive difference in the quality, the 4.2 has increased bandwidth that it can carry some potentially higher bit rates for music as well higher security standards as well as ability to connect directly to the internet using the IPV6 protocol.

This headphone also supports connecting to your app on iOS and Android devices. In this app, you can update your headphone software and by the way, the connectivity can be made better through the updates that have got through the app. You can also control the music playback within that app, you can also control the devices it’s connected to because of its ability to connect to multiple devices and change the name of the device. In addition to that in the Beoplay H9, you can also adjust the sound profile which you can’t do in QC35.

MICROPHONE:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

I tested out the sound quality and performance of the microphone on the Bowers & Wilkins PX7, it sounds really good for a phone call, and also, it sounds good to the person on the other side. This microphone also helps in letting in the ambient sound so that you be aware of your surroundings and environment.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

These headphones also have microphones for making calls and they’re really good which I couldn’t say of the previous versions of Bluetooth headphones that I’ve used. They also have microphones inside to adjust the active noise-canceling to the environment around you. These microphones also help you in letting in the ambient sound through transparency mode.

BATTERY:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

As far as the battery life on the Bowers & Wilkins PX7, you are going to get around thirty hours of playback as the Bowers & Wilkins Claims. IF you use them with the ANC and Bluetooth on then you may get less amount of battery life compared to the actual life as claimed. But still, you can save your battery by using them as wired at times. This headphone uses USB-C for charging so it supports fast charging that is 15 minutes of charging will give around five hours of playback.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

The Bose QC35 and Sony MDR 1000 equally allow you to play music for 20 hours using active noise-canceling while Beoplay gives you 14 hours. The benefit of Beoplay compared to the other ones in terms of battery is that you can replace the battery for a very low cost, so you can carry a couple with you and extend the battery life for a very long time. As the company claims, it will take 2.5 hours to get fully charged.

SOUND:

Bowers & Wilkins PX7

Overall, it sounded better than the Bose 700 in my personal opinion. The audio direction or specifically stereo separation was great on these but my first critique is there wasn’t as much depth as the Sony 1000XM3 and on some occasions, the Bose 700 did better in this area as well. With the PX7 the bass is good as a standalone device but compared to some of the most popular ANC headphones out there, the depth of audio experience on the PX7 was not quite there. I think the biggest critique is the top end sounds to have a good amount of basically roll-off, there is a lack of brightness or resolution, and the very top end with claps, snaps, snare drums, and such it could use a little more sharpness to make these songs on the top end. It’s not muffled or distorted but the PX7 could use an equalizer that would help with this area.

Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9

As far as the sound quality on this headphone, I really do like it. The reason I like the H9 so much is that it is really deep and punchy in its baseline. It’s got finer details in the mid-range that I couldn’t say for the QC 35 and it’s got no roll-off for highs, so you don’t get that tinging on ear ringing sound when you’re listening to really high volumes, and it’s not fatiguing your ear. The H9 also has a much more pronounced soundstage, so you feel as if you were in the room when the sound was recorded. The sound gets even better when you wire it to your sound source. One of the good things with H9 is you can adjust the soundstage, you can add more bass or take it off, add more highs, whatever your preferences ease.

WHICH TO BUY?

In my opinion, if you already own a pair of the previous generation PX headphones there isn’t much need to upgrade to the new PX7. If you’re always on the go and you need a great pair of noise-canceling headphones to constantly use for long periods of time then you are definitely better off getting the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9 because even though it’s the price is more its a qualitative product. If you are the type that takes a particular time of the day to listen to music for one or two hours max and you want the best sounding pair of active noise-canceling headphones on the market, then you should go for the Bowers & Wilkins PX7.

Expert reviews of Bowers & Wilkins PX7:

By theguardian.com
The left earcup has a multi-function button that controls noise canceling. Press it to cycle between automatic, low, high, and noise-canceling off. Press and hold…

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By PCMag
The Bowers & Wilkins PX7 headphones balance strong wireless noise cancellation with an excellent audio performance for a very high price.

By Pocket-lint
Bowers & Wilkins has been consistent over the years and, in the PX7 headphones, continues that trend. It has created another wireless pair that will undoubtedly get the stamp of approval from…

By Trusted Reviews
The audio performance of the PX7 is fabulous, but there are two mitigating factors against it, or perhaps just…

By TechRadar
If you’re looking for class-leading wireless, noise-canceling headphones and you’re not put off by a premium price tag, Bowers & Wilkins’ latest flagship pair…

Experts reviews of Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9:

By Tech Hive
The Beoplay H9 marries exquisite design, premium materials, good active noise canceling, and B&O’s signature sound to deliver a flagship headphone worthy of the Danish company’s audiophile pedigree.

By Pocket-lint
It would be too easy to criticize the B&O BeoPlay H9 for the high price and the noise-cancellation being too subtle for some. But that would be shortsighted: because of the H9…

By Tech Radar
The B&O Beoplay H9 are luxury headphones that miss some key marks. Materials, battery life, and active noise cancellation are great, but their overwhelming bass, lack of features, and…

(Video) Bang & Olufsen - Beoplay HX vs Beoplay H9 3gen

By Digital Trends
The extra clarity provided by the H9’s modest noise cancellation is appreciated, but it’s hard to justify when you consider they’re $100 more expensive than the H7, and provide…

By topnewreview.com
The H9 offers a slightly laidback sound signature with good naturalness and a fairly large sound stage. We thought its strengths seemed to be more in the upper ranges of the audio spectrum, as the headphone…