We’re always looking to make a better product. We have re-engineered the caps at the end of the earbuds to improve antenna performance," they said. The new Bowers & Wilkins Music app will also offer better control and customization of the buds – and the audio retransmission feature is still on board. The Pi7 S2 are the only set of the two to offer Adaptive ANC, where the buds monitor your surroundings and tweak their settings accordingly to deal with the external noise the mics detect.

The four-mic array works very well and presents voices cleanly. We didn't have any trouble understanding every word from a test recording on an iPhone, though the signal was just slightly faint compared with that on many other high-end models we've tested.The Bowers & Wilkins Pi5 S2’s noise cancellation (ANC) acts consistently well across the entire frequency band: Everyday noises are effectively attenuated so that street noise with your window open or noise from your neighbours in the office were largely masked by the signal. However, the Pi5 S2 did not provide the quietness of over-ear headphones. The transparency mode can be activated in two stages via the app and provides a slightly reduced ambience in the “Low” setting. Voices and traffic noises were transmitted to the ear at a pleasant volume with good transmission quality. For louder environments, it can be set to “High”, which provided a slight boost but added a slight hiss. The Bowers & Wilkins Pi5 S2 in practice The Pi5 S2 is not necessarily an accessory for workouts – despite the IP54 rating of these earphones – instead, they are for chilling out. Nevertheless, they did a good job in urban areas as well as during walks in nature. The noise-cancelling system shielded outside noise well, although not as dramatically as the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II did. With ANC activated and the “milder” transparency mode on, you can achieve a very good balance between undisturbed listening and sufficient good attentiveness both in traffic and in nature.

The biggest weakness of the original PI7 was the battery life, and the PI7 S2 improve that… just. The battery life in the buds has been improved from 4.5 hours to… 5 hours in the new version. I was hoping for more like 6 hours, which is the norm now for the best noise-cancelling earbuds– and many beat it comfortably.

In the Box

Bowers & Wilkins is looking to expand its customer base via an expanded colour range and now offers the Pi5 S2 in storm grey with semi-transparent dark red ear tips, cloud grey with shimmering pink end pieces, light green and – as with the model we tested – spring lilac with plain ear tips, which I felt was rather chic. The design of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi5 S2 has remained the same, which means that these in-ears still protrude a bit from your ears, something that you need to bear in mind if you like to wear a cap or hat. The earphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0, which is a bit out of date. That's noteworthy because Bowers & Wilkins still hasn’t nailed the pairing process. Most earbuds we test enter pairing mode as soon as you remove them from the case, but these require you to press a button on the case for 1.5 seconds to initiate the first-time pairing process. In testing, it took us multiple tries to initially pair them with an iPhone, an annoyance we don't expect from any product we test, let alone one that costs this much. The good news is that subsequent connection attempts worked fine. Note that the Bowers & Wilkins Music app (available for Android and iOS) is the one you should use for these earphones, not the B&W Headphones app. The main screen shows an image of the earpieces, along with a battery life readout for each one (but not the case). The first time you open the app, a setup guide walks you through the basics of the on-ear controls. According to the manufacturer, the antenna design has been revised, which on the one hand, makes the end caps seem somewhat more powerful, and on the other hand, should increase the range by 25 metres. In our test, however, the Pi5 S2 did not seem to have a greater range than comparable products. Since my test of the previous model was two years ago, I can neither confirm nor deny the improvement. The Pi5 S2’s Bluetooth connection broke after about ten metres on the way to the office coffee machine through three lightweight walls at the same “magic” limit where the competitors also usually fail.

As we hoped, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi5 S2 also lived up to expectations in terms of sound. Nothing has changed technically compared to their predecessors, and I didn’t feel that the tuning had been changed either. The sound performance was particularly impressive with finely resolved classical recordings such as “La Mer” from Claude Debussy’s works for orchestra. A very nice differentiation and spatiality with very good localisation provided pleasurable moments that are rarely achievable with in-ears. We’ve introduced a new design of antenna and repositioned it within the earbud endcaps: at the same time, we have switched to a new endcap material that is more transparent to Bluetooth signals. The result is stronger Bluetooth signal strength, giving us an improved 25 metre range, double what it was before, plus enhanced wireless stability."

The verdict: Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2

But the tech behind the drivers has been tweaks. There's no support for aptX Adaptive wireless, so you should get a more reliable connection overall (B&W is saying you also get longer range of up to 25m) as well as Hi-Res Audio from compatible sources. They also come loaded with 9.2mm bespoke Bowers & Wilkins drive units. These are paired with a high-frequency "balanced armature" driver, and each of the four drive units is driven by its own amplifier.