Bowers & Wilkins P5 On-Ear Headphones B&W - Black (discontinued by manufacturer)

Product Information

Classical tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, are graced with a slightly boosted low-end, adding a bit of pleasant resonance and spatial depth to the lower register instrumentation. It helps that the sound is clean, with barely a hint of the hiss we often get with Bluetooth headphones. Another potential problem, the mic a few mm off center and the treble FR may be considerably different already, due to the "on-ear" construction and maybe the wide spacing of the holes in the leather. They sound a little bit closed due to their small ear cup design, but they reproduce the bass, mids, and treble frequencies quite well. However, with the P5 Series 2, the bass thumping went straight to the brain with no hint of speaker laziness.

Given the above description, it should come as no surprise to you that I am a huge fan of the P5 build quality. Either way, it sounded like full volume from wireless was two-thirds of what the wired connection was outputting. Considering that this is still the audiophile approach, I sampled the P5 with MP3 files toward the end of my listening sessions to see if these phones made sense as an upgrade for the average listener. I heard instruments in this song that I’d never heard before and, according to iTunes, I’ve listened to it well over 300 times.

I did try to give them a chance though and proceeded to loosen the drivers up (burn) by playing music nonstop through them for a good 50 to 60 hours.

We get decent tracking of our target past a few hundred hertz but then have another shortfall above 4 kHz. I wish I could enjoy these as I think they are a very finely crafted headphone that would go well for portable use. Music selection: 2NE1 – The First Album, 2NE1 – The Second Mini Album, Prince – 1999, Prince – Around The World In A Day, Prince – Purple Rain, The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land, Clara C – The Art In My Heart, Daft Punk – Random Access Memories, Nicholas Payton – Bam! Something that’s worth noting though was that the volume is noticeably softer when using the Bluetooth function as opposed to a wired connection. Worth noting, the headphones drooped down the crown of my head a few times, but that wasn’t a major issue by any means—your mileage may vary.

All the while, your eyes are met with metal rails running into a sheepskin headband with ample cushioning. They are perfect for Iron Maiden, Porcupine Tree, Joe Bonamassa, Pat Metheney, James Brown, and SRV; real music that real people in the real world like to hear. Maybe it’s due to the increase in power required for a Bluetooth connection, or maybe I have a faulty device. The black and silver color palette say that these headphones mean business, while the sheepskin, memory foam headband, and ear cups keep you comfortable.

Even though I'm a freelancer now, PCMag has been my home for well over a decade, and audio gear reviews are still my primary focus. Normally I set the reference level of 94 dB to 425 Hz but got unlucky in this case as the bass resonance is located at that very frequency. The headphone cuffs and the fitted leather over the cuffs act like a sort of tight sealing suction cup over the ears allowing no noise leakage in or out.I persevered for a month or so then bought the HD25s which I should have bought right at the beginning but chose the DT-1350.

The P5 is an eleven year old headphone, but it went through a significant revision (the “P5 Series 2”) in 2015. B and W P5 Wireless brings you a remarkably natural sound and a luxuriously comfortable fit that makes longer listening sessions a pleasure. True, there are many better sounding cans but I doubt most who have purchased did so for them to be their premium listening headphone.

As it is with all other iterations of the Bowers and Wilkins P-models, the P5 wireless get a bit hot under the ears. Additionally, it’s great that you can still use the headphones when the battery dies via the provided cable.