
Knowledgeable’s Score
Professionals
- Glorious sound high quality
- Aggressive worth
- Spectacular battery life
Cons
- Noise-cancellation may very well be stronger
- No spatial audio or Dolby Atmos
Our Verdict
The noise-cancellation may very well be a little bit more practical, however the Px7 S3 offers hi-fi sound high quality, together with spectacular 30-hour battery life at a way more aggressive worth than most of its high-end rivals.
Value When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Finest Pricing At this time
Value When Reviewed
399
Finest Costs At this time: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3
£340.78
Apple made some welcome updates to the AirPods Max in April 2025, lastly bringing its (nonetheless) overpriced headphones into the period of high-res audio in the end. In the intervening time, the Hello-Fi consultants at Bowers & Wilkins have launched the fourth-generation replace for his or her over-ear Px7 headphones, which now include the marginally ungainly title of the Px7 S3.
The U.S. worth of the S3 was up within the air due to that little kerfuffle with a worldwide commerce struggle, however the U.Okay. worth was £399 after they went on sale within the U.Okay. in Could, and as of June 2025, now you can purchase them on Amazon U.S. for $449. The S3 offers a critical rival to each the AirPods Max and B&W’s personal flagship Px8.
Unsurprisingly, the Px7 S3 appears to be like fairly just like its predecessors, with the glossy strains and minimalist stylish that’s the trademark of B&W’s headphone vary, together with a wide range of tasteful pastel shades that you would be able to select from.
The S3 is much more minimalist than regular, although, as B&W has managed to scale back the thickness of the earpieces for this new mannequin, and has additionally decreased the burden to simply 300g – in comparison with 386g for the AirPods Max.
The earpieces are additionally padded with reminiscence foam, so the S3 ought to be mild and comfy sufficient to put on for lengthy intervals of time – and for lengthy journeys too, because it presents a formidable 30 hours of battery life even when utilizing noise-cancellation.

The Px7 S3 can work in each wired and wi-fi modes, supporting Bluetooth 5.3 and the AAC codec for Apple units, in addition to aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless for our Android buddies. There’s no spatial audio in the intervening time, though B&W has mentioned that it’s creating its personal type of spatial audio that can be out there by way of a software program replace in coming months.
The PX vary had the power to make use of USB-C for charging and wired audio years earlier than Apple added that potential to the AirPods Max, and the USB-C port of the Px7 S3 now helps high-res audio codecs as much as 24-bit/96KHz – barely greater than the 24-bit/48KHz of the AirPods Max – so it could deal with a lot of the high-res tracks out there on Apple Music.
There’s a USB-C cable included, together with a 3.5mm audio cable too, so you need to use the wired reference to most computer systems and cell units, and there’s a hard-shell carrying case thrown in for good measure as properly.

Sound high quality is superb, and the Px7 S3 copes admirably with the heady cocktail of sounds on Ricky Martin’s She Bangs, streamed from Apple Music on my iPad Air. There’s lots occurring on this observe with drums and percussion, guitars, horns and tinkling piano all competing for consideration, however the Px7 S3 is in a position to create space so that every instrument stays clear and distinct. It exhibits a lightweight contact on the rattling percussion that bounces in all places, and there’s an infectious vitality because the horns blare out whereas Ricky yells – “she appears to be like like a flower, however she stings like a bee!”.
The Px7 S3 can deal with extra delicate sounds too. A latest re-watch of The Final Of Us (episode 3) prompts me to return to Max Richter’s chic On The Nature Of Daylight. The cellos open the piece with a delicate, winding melody, however the tone of the strings is so unhappy and mournful that it’s an on the spot tear-jerker. The sharper tone of the violins and viola provides to the bittersweet temper, and the Px7 S3 creates a way of area that enables the totally different strings to drift gracefully by way of the air and weave a fragile dance round one another.
The Px7 S3 is a winner on sound high quality and worth for cash, however one space the place costlier rivals such because the AirPods Max and Bose QC Extremely do nonetheless have an edge is the effectiveness of their noise-cancellation options. The Px7 S3 does a very good job at blocking low-frequency sounds, such because the drone of an plane engine, however greater frequencies, such because the chatter of voices in a busy airport, do nonetheless leak by way of a little bit.
Do you have to purchase the B&W Px7 S3?
In the event you’re obsessive about noise-cancellation then there are costlier headphones that may block out background noise extra successfully. Nevertheless, the wonderful sound high quality and spectacular battery lifetime of the Px7 S3, make it an amazing choice for anybody that desires a extremely high-quality set of headphones at a aggressive worth.
We have now checked out numerous AirPods Max opponents, see our spherical up of the Finest over-ear headphones.