Bowers & Wilkins Reviews 183

I genuinely cannot remember the last time I was this disappointed with a premium product.

The Bowers & Wilkins PI8 earbuds have been an absolute nightmare from day one. First, they simply do not stay in my ears. I’ve tried every size ear tip supplied in the box, mixed and matched them, and spent far more time adjusting them than actually listening to music. No matter what I do, they feel loose and constantly need repositioning.

The connectivity is just as bad. Random dropouts are a regular occurrence, and there have been multiple occasions where I’ve had to reboot the software and reconnect everything just to get them working again. For a product at this price point, that’s completely unacceptable.

Then there’s the charging. This is where things go from frustrating to ridiculous. You can put the earbuds in the case, plug the case in, or place it on a wireless charging pad, and it’s a lottery whether everything charges properly. Sometimes the case charges, one earbud charges, and the other decides it’s stopping at 17% for no apparent reason. You then discover this only when you put them in your ears and one side doesn’t work because it’s effectively flat.

For something marketed as a premium audio product, the experience feels anything but premium. Great sound quality means absolutely nothing if the earbuds won’t stay in your ears, won’t stay connected, and won’t reliably charge.

Save yourself the frustration, save yourself the endless troubleshooting, and save yourself the money. There are plenty of alternatives on the market that simply work.

Avoid at all costs.

I bought Bowers & Wilkins headphones from Compumail. From the very first day, I had problems with them, so after a while I sent them back for service. Even after 5 weeks, I still haven’t received any proper solution or update.

Because of the poor after-sales support, I honestly cannot recommend this brand (Bowers &Wilkıns). The price-to-performance ratio and service quality are very weak. I regret buying them, and I hope others don’t end up with the same disappointment

Theyre selling the px8's with a known battery issue,then expecting the retailer to deal with everything. 0 customer service, won't be returning

Very poor quality product, ear phone cover came off after use now fit for the bin

GUTTED. Head phones broke as soon as the warranty ended and the company won’t do anything for me. DO NOT BUY FROM THIS BRAND. No wonder the reviews are so terrible. Hugely regretting not going for Bose. My partners Bose Headphones are ten years old and still work. Will never buy from this company again.

I have a pair of px8 S2 and the pi 8s and in my opinion are the best that money can buy, in my collection I have Bose Sony and apple but the Bowers and Wilkins are by far the best.yes expensive but buy with confidence.

Bought a pair of Pi8 earbuds; less than 24 hours after being delivered they are on their way back to John Lewis; dreadful; whats the point of spending thousands developing high end earbuds then spending 10 pence developing the app? Running the app on my iphone, the app says they are connected whilst the phone says they arent, and there is no sound coming out; tapping them to pause music is useless as they sometimes respond, sometimes dont, and sometimes respond later; there is a series of actions you can take on each earbud, such as tapping one, twice or three times, or holding them, but nowhere on the app does it tell you what these functions are; the app says you can customise tap and hold interactions, but actually all you can do is select between volume control and ANC, but it doesnt tell you what you have done; i.e. volume control says 'left earbud volume down, right earbud volume up' but doesnt tell you how, i.e tap? Hold? the chap on online chat made me update the app and my iphone because he clearly didnt understand the limited functionality of the app; he also told me that whilst they are 'multipoint' then to disconnect from my iphone and connect to my macbook I had to turn bluetooth off (which is ridiculous); my Bose open air buds have an app where you can select the source within the app; why cant B&W have something similar? Sorry, but for the price they are just very poor; come on B&W, you can do WAY better than this! you are getting one star reviews across the board and dont respond to anything; its a shame as my B&W T7 portable speaker has not missed a beat in 15 years, but I wont be buying a B&W product again.

I purchased a pair of Bower & Wilkins PX8 Headphones. They are absolutely fantatic! The sound & noise cancelling is truly amazing & they look absolutely gorgeous, with & premium build quality.

They are extremely comfortable to wear, but for the price you are paying, you would expect better/more base, has there is hardly any. Their aftersales Customer Service is a diagrace!!

Extremely rude & ingnorant staff in technical support that don't know what the hell they are doing & can't even give correct technical support, I had to resolve the problem myself.

Disgusting service, when your paying over £600 for their headphones!!!!!!!!!

Absolute pieces of shit. Constant connection issues, noise cancelling is a joke, only one of two buds works ~30% of the time, customer service is worse than the IRS. Disgraceful.

Purchased a set of new headphones directly from B&W and unfortunately decided to return them for a full refund.
I won’t go into too much detail other than it took me almost a month for them to return my money following numerous emails and a phone call

Really abysmal experience with B & W app controlling formation speakers for the last 6 years. So they had more than enough time to rectify its bugs.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend products that rely on their apps.

I have just bought a Zeppelin that might as well crash and burn.

No instructions, an App that does nothing, totally unclear controls, will not connect via bluetooth. Sat here for the last 4 hours hoping some sound, any sound, will come out of it but with no clue whatsoever offered, by the app or anything else, as to how to work the thing it is no more use to me than an ugly ornament.

I have to say my experience with Bower & Wilkins customer service went totally against all these 1 star reviews, my experience was 5 star all the way!!
I had a connectivity issue with my Formation Bar, wouldn’t turn on when the TV turned on. Therefore, I reached out and used the support tab on the website. The next morning, I had a response, offering some suggestions for me to try to rectify the issue myself. After a couple of further emails which were responded to immediately it was deemed that my Bar need to go in for repair. Again, this was handled with the upmost efficiency.
They sent me a label and arranged for the bar to be collected. Within a couple of weeks I had an update on the repair and the bar was shipped back repaired and cleaned.
The whole process went as a smooth as clockwork, everything I'd expect when buying high end equipment .
I have a few B&W products now and the service I received just confirms that not only are the speakers products are great but the aftersales service lives up to the quality of the products.
Special shout out to Sharon for all her assistance on this matter.

Very Poor company.. I purchased In ear true wireless Headphones from John Lewis. a few years ago.. It was an expensive purchase being 350. I had every intention to use them as they are intended to be used. I never took them outside on fear on dropping or losing one, so only remained in the house. Because I in house headphones these really did not get used much at all... max. charging amounts probably 5 in 3 years... Then when I decided to start to use them, they wouldnt work... Will charge.. Will work for a small amount of time, then one bud stops working. Obviously out of warranty now.. I contacted B@W only to be told.. they cant be fixed.. we can not fix earbuds, so all you can do is buy another pair and we will give you a small discount. This is appalling service by them.. they know there is some sort of fault. with the drivers I think the guy from B@W mentioned and yet they take no responsibility at all.... Probably made cheaply abroad, then pride themselves on British.. They are a joke.. My advice either throw your money away, or be prepared you are buy cheap, rubbish quality headphones.. Best of it is.. I didnt want apple earbuds because everyone has them... I see why now.. Better company better quality all round.. BEWARE when you have them B@W Date of experience is not revelevant.. This is me getting around to writing this review

The support service is not interested in helping customers.
I bought Bowers & Wilkins PX8 headphones, they are brand new but do not work.
I contacted support and they suggested steps to fix the problem, I did everything, but nothing helped.
Then they said they would replace my faulty headphones with new ones.
I sent them my brand new but faulty headphones, but they said they didn't receive anything, even though I have proof of delivery!
I corresponded with them and called them for two months, but to no avail.
No one wanted to understand my situation; they don't care about their customers.
They took my faulty headphones and refuse to send me the replacement they promised me.
So be warned, if you buy Bowers & Wilkins products, you will never receive proper service or good treatment.

I got me a pair of pi8's wonderful sound really amazing and crisp.
But for the price of these premium headbuds, the practicality is simply shitty.

First of all the noise cancellation is a joke, and the touch system is not intuitive, for example sennheiser does way better here.

Besides that one or both buds malfunctions often, where you need to factory reset them like once a week. Which I wouldn't expect when buying earbuds in this price range.

So great sound but everything else sucks.

My Px7 2Se experience:

The Android phone experience is the known "quiet on Bluetooth and VERY quiet via USB" one...
I've just downloaded your Windows app- doesn't recognize the headphones being connected via USB...
WHY did you make this "typical modern Windows app that doesn't work" then?

Service has fallen dramatically. No support for zeppelin air, t7, A7 and support on the phone was woeful. Basically take it to a repair centre was the response when I clearly explained this was not the product . I have bought ten products over the years from them but if this is the type of service then I wont be buying any more!

The Zeppelin pro speaker should be titled Bluetooth speaker as their totally useless app can never find the speaker and states "No spaces found" ie it can't find the speaker. Returned the first Zeppelin pro as was advised by their tech team it might have a faulty WiFi card. The replacement is exactly the same. I'm with the UKs biggest broadband company so know it's not the router. For the price of the speaker I can't recommend it unless used over Bluetooth.

Terrible quality of PX5 headphones. I bought them second hand but if I will spend £250 I would be really angry. They survived two months of daily use, left started to stop working and now permanently doesn't work. I opened them to check if I can do something to find that design for the country where half of year is raining has no protection at all naked cables. Good sound sophisticated electronic (to sophisticated like for me) and such a rubish product.