Bowers & Wilkins Reviews 

Avoid buying PX5 headphones! I bought a pair in March 2020. In May the right side suddenly stopped working. No more sound. B&W replaced it with a new pair and one year later I have the exact same problem and they want me to send it to a repair service. Headphones were used at my desk only and have been taken care of. This is clearly an expensive faulty product.

I have had 2 pairs of. B and W headphones. They are excellent products from a sound point of view but quality is problematic. Several of my P3 cables needed replacing, and then one earphone stopped working. Instead of fixing , I bought a brand new sealed pair of PX5 headphones which I loved. After5 months, right earphone stopped working. B and W would not honour the warranty as they weren’t bought through an ,approved’ supplier. I sent them to an independent headphone specialist who couldn’t economically repair them as they need a new ,main board,. Unbelievable- brand new then useless 5 months later. Bad service and waste of money as they don’t last. Highly disappointed,

Microphone very poor with iPhone. After paying £270, not impressed at having to hold microphone up to mouth and keep head turned to the right- but let B&W speak for themselves- this exchange is from their customer “support”:



You recently requested personal assistance from our on-line Support Centre. Below is a summary of your request and our response.
Subject
Microphone

Response By E-mail (Neil (Customer Support)) (20/04/2021 14:20)
Hi Jeremy,

Many thanks for getting in touch; we're very sorry to hear of your experience with these.

Once these have been paired with your device, they are able to be used for music and receive the odd phone call.

The limitations of this design are that the only place to install the microphone is on the Control Pad, so, the intention is that you can move that closer to your mouth, when required.

Does the microphone not work at all, or is it quieter than you would like?

Have you tried the headphones on another device?

Many thanks,

Neil


Customer By Service Web (Jeremy Chipperfield) (18/04/2021 20:30)
I have just collected replacement for BW P14 whose micpriphine was not working for callls. The new pair is exactly the same. VVV disappointed.

Last time you called and just told me to reset it and if it didn’t work to return to retailer. Which i did.

Don you have anything else to suggest. Have seen on internet suggestion that microphone is not good- Is this is recognised problem with your product?

Please call me.

As someone who spends about 30% of their waking time listening to music, I finally spent big (by my budget) on the PX7 after doing a fair amount of research. I had the headphones for about 2 months before doing the unimaginable and accidentally breaking them. I was absolutely gutted.

I had made peace with the fact that I'd lost arguably the best item I've ever owned and written off the investment but I thought I'd email B&W regardless to see if there was anything that could be done.

I talked to a woman called Scarlett, who was extremely pleasant and helpful throughout the entire email chain. She managed to hook me up with a deal to send my broken headphones back (along with a financial contribution) in return for a new pair of headphones as my previous pair were structurally damaged. I was over the moon. The financial contribution was more than fair, especially due to the fact that the issue was my own fault rather than the fault of B&W.

The entire process took about a week and it was effortless. Some of the best customer service I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

There might always be companies that offer products that might have a slight up on what B&W offer, but to be able to talk to a compassionate human being that understands the situation and helps you to the best of their ability. I think that's what constitutes as the basis for having life-long customers, as I am now.

I have the PX headphones for 2 years now.
but it already did wear out.
The power button almost doesn't work anymore!
And also the pauze/volume buttons are broken.
The pauze button doesn't click or do anything anymore.
And the volume down button randomly gets triggered and lowers/shuts down my volume.

Bowers and Wilkins currently has a pretty incompetent app development strategy and inadequate testing program. The speakers have a fantastic sound quality, but the requirement to control the device volume from the app forces the user to use a highly unreliable set of apps that do fail and is regularly trolled by actual customers for things like “no volume bar”, “volume bar disappears”, “crappy”. Folks we are talking about very expensive best of class sound equipment. The fact that this failed functionality even gets into the hands of customers in the first place is pretty sketchy and the people that run this company need to fix it and stop ripping off people that need to be able to actually use their purchase.

I would suggest if they haven’t already to hire the app developers (preferably ones who can actually make a good app) as full time roles , before they start coding have them read every single bad review on trust pilot and App Store and sit in a room with their first line support, fix the app or roll back the code to old version alongside rigorous testing of whatever they release, and then do a big look back exercise to figure out what went wrong. If you can’t move fast as a team, don’t. Move slow and create a high quality product and slow down on your digital release cadence with more oversight and focus. These mobile experience decisions are not competitive at all and if you guys are trying to benchmark against app based companies or win over users by integrating 3P services, you’re doing so in a way that doesn’t lift the brand.

Secondly, ship every customer who purchased your devices a free physical remote control.

Recently bought a pair of PI4's. Used them nearly day and was really impressed.
After using them last night, i noticed this morning that the indicator light is now a funny white colour, not the normal green or blue colour.

Can't see anything in the manual regarding this.

Has anyone had a similar experience ?

As a voice of warning, don't purchase the px headphones. The product was fine up until a couple of months after warranty. Where the hinge snapped, I got in contact with customer service where they explained the product is discontinued and they can't be repaired.

The only offer was to pay an additional £250.00 for the newer version. So beware if you see these headphones on sale, it's a shame because they're a superb per of headphones that have served me well over the past couple of years.

I have a pair of 685s2 speakers the black vinyl wrap is starting to come away on the corner.I always held this brand in high regard and planned on progressing up the product range in time. As you can imagine, after this "customer service" experience I will be looking to one of their competitors for my speaker needs in the future.

My 400€ Bowers & Wilkins headphones broke. It's apparently a known issue but so far I had no chance to contact warranty support at all. I have tried a couple of web formular which all reported errors so that they couldnt deliver my claim.

I bought a pair of PI4 Bluetooth ear buds, and it was the worst $395 I’ve ever spent. The product is very poorly designed, the control system hasn’t been effectively designed and the method of operation is as far from seamless as you can get. The microphone is terrible when noise cancelling is on, and even when you turn it off you can hardly be heard. Battery life is limited, comfort is average, and to add insult to injury, when I made a complaint, the customer service was atrocious. I’ve never been so disappointed with a product or the complaint handling process.

After five years of ownership and very sporadic use my Zeppelin Air stopped working. A professional technician concluded the internal power supply (PSU) had malfunctioned and that it was quite a common fault with this unit. He further told me that it will need a new PSU or he could build the component if supplied with a schematic of the original.

I spoke with a B&W customer service adviser who told me that they will neither fix the device or supply a schematic as they are under licence from a third party. I then requested the name of the third party so I could obtain the part direct from source and I was told "we don't have the information".

So in conclusion B&W don't know who supplies the circuitry for their products and are unwilling to repair when they go wrong.

I always held this brand in high regard and planned on progressing up the product range in time. As you can imagine, after this "customer service" experience I will be looking to one of their competitors for my AV needs in the future.

I'm a pro and I know what I'm doing. I've never been happy with this product - wifi audio in and out even with strong wifi broadcast. Now it won't even "see" 1/8" mini audio coming in. Just stays in sleep mode.There is no setup software available for MAC to get this going with my new MacBook Pro 2019. Control software no good. Just spins and doesn't see the Z2. Already powered on/off and held reset button several times. No change. I also updated to latest control software on my mac.
Remote no longer works. Replaced to correct button batt but no change. This used to work fairly OK, now no more. No change in WIFI or router here. It's B&W's issue.

As some of you experienced I find the PX5 very fragile. After a month I got clicking noice in the right speaker like the sound of a loose element. After some days the speaker was dead. I switched to a new pair at the retailer and now exactly the same thing have happened again.

I own a pair of P7 Wireless headphones bought from John Lewis about 4 years ago. They have opened-up a new level of audio reproduction to me. For a bluetooth headphone they are very, very good indeed and they look and feel every bit as good as they sound. The headphones developed a minor fault after 6 months of use (an intermittent rattle in one of the earcups) and were quickly replaced without any quibbles at all. I am looking forward to enjoying more B&W products in future.

I send my broken P7 Wireless headphones back to B&W after using for 2 years, I already aspects it can't be fix, but luckily it is still under warranty and they are sending me a replacement. Excellent customer services B&W👍

I bought a pair of PX5 headphones, one of the speakers broke within 2 days of standard use listening to Audiobooks. I got a replacement and exactly the same thing happened. Pretty much the worst quality headphone I have ever owned, I cannot understand how anyone is using these

Absolutely Terrible Product Support
If you wish to lose the will to live, purchase a B&W product. I could write a paper on the failings of B&W support.

I own P7 and PX5 Headphones and have just brought a Formation Bar, Base and Twin Flex Speaker set up to use as a home cinema.

I find their products to offer superb sound quality - and when ever I have a problem or query I find their Customer Service to be very quick in replying and very helpful.

They are now my 'default' choice when buying audio/visual equipment

I usually do not write customer service reviews however I just want to really bring the attention and help that B&W has provided me with PX. This is NOT a review of PX. I bought a PX a year ago but it broke within 6 months. The volume up button stopped functioning. I contacted B & W and they offer a repair. Unfortunately they could not fix it hence they send me a replacement within a week. The same replacement broke within another 6 months. This time, there was a clicking noise on the right side of the headphone (presume battery has come off its holder) & the battery never fully charges. Again, they offered to fix it but when they could not resolve it; they replaced it. Really grateful that the company has a
such a great after sales values. I hope this pair will last long as I was without these for 2 weeks. First world problems.