Bowers & Wilkins first ever P5 headphones follow the iPod money trail
By Thomas Ricker 
posted November 10th 2009 3:19AM
posted November 10th 2009 3:19AM
Bowers & Wilkins headphones hit the streets
Concert for one
Unfatiguing natural sound gets you closer to the music. Noise isolating design for use on the move. Metal an sealed-leather construction maximizes comfort, for life-long listening. Made for iPod®, weith cables supplied for speech and device control.
Bowers & Wilkins is proud to announce its first ever headphone. Designed for use on the move, the P5 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphone allows people to have Bowers & Wilkins sound quality wherever they are.
Some 45 years of audio experience has gone into the P5; close to five-decades of research into what true sound is. The ultimate aim of all Bowers & Wilkins products is to bring the listener as close as possible to the sound intended by the recording engineers. That is as true of the world-renowned 800 Series speakers used in the likes of Abbey Road Studio, as it is for the best sounding premium iPod® speaker available, Zeppelin. And now it's true for Mobile Hi-Fi Headphones.
Recognizing that many mobile headphones can be tiring when listened to over extended periods, Bowers & Wilkins' engineers at the world-famous Stenying Research Establishment have worked tirelessly to produce a headphone with a natural, unfatiguing performance. The use of specially developed ultra-linear neodymium magnets and highly optimized Mylar diaphragms provide the best possible sound quality. As always, countless hours of critical listening and tuning have played a major part in the P5's natural and engaging performance.
This pristine sound performance is married to design and construction techniques aimed at isolating as much noise as possible, for consumers that do not require full electronic noise cancellation. This isolation is achieved through a combination of the closed-back design featuring a rigid metal faceplate, and the sealed-leather ear pads. These materials not only remove a lot of external noise, providing an enveloping listening experience without completely removing the user's sense of place, they also offer an extremely comfortable user experience. The leather-clad headband has been designed for extreme comfort where it interfaces with the side of the head, while the softest available sheep's leather from New Zealand has been used for the ear pads. Recognizing the dominance of Apple's iPod and iPhone® in the portable media market, the P5 comes supplied with a Made For iPod approved cable, which allows for speech and device control. It also comes supplied with a high-quality, standard audio cable with gold-plated plugs. Switching between the two is facilitated by the magnetically attached ear pads, which simply pop off allowing access to the cable.
Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin and Zeppelin Mini provide the best possible sound from an iPod at home, and now the P5 lets you take that great performance with you wherever you go. Bowers & Wilkins P5 is available from January 2010 To find your nearest Bowers & Wilkins stockist visit www.bowers-wilkins.com.
Concert for one
Unfatiguing natural sound gets you closer to the music. Noise isolating design for use on the move. Metal an sealed-leather construction maximizes comfort, for life-long listening. Made for iPod®, weith cables supplied for speech and device control.
Bowers & Wilkins is proud to announce its first ever headphone. Designed for use on the move, the P5 Mobile Hi-Fi Headphone allows people to have Bowers & Wilkins sound quality wherever they are.
Some 45 years of audio experience has gone into the P5; close to five-decades of research into what true sound is. The ultimate aim of all Bowers & Wilkins products is to bring the listener as close as possible to the sound intended by the recording engineers. That is as true of the world-renowned 800 Series speakers used in the likes of Abbey Road Studio, as it is for the best sounding premium iPod® speaker available, Zeppelin. And now it's true for Mobile Hi-Fi Headphones.
Recognizing that many mobile headphones can be tiring when listened to over extended periods, Bowers & Wilkins' engineers at the world-famous Stenying Research Establishment have worked tirelessly to produce a headphone with a natural, unfatiguing performance. The use of specially developed ultra-linear neodymium magnets and highly optimized Mylar diaphragms provide the best possible sound quality. As always, countless hours of critical listening and tuning have played a major part in the P5's natural and engaging performance.
This pristine sound performance is married to design and construction techniques aimed at isolating as much noise as possible, for consumers that do not require full electronic noise cancellation. This isolation is achieved through a combination of the closed-back design featuring a rigid metal faceplate, and the sealed-leather ear pads. These materials not only remove a lot of external noise, providing an enveloping listening experience without completely removing the user's sense of place, they also offer an extremely comfortable user experience. The leather-clad headband has been designed for extreme comfort where it interfaces with the side of the head, while the softest available sheep's leather from New Zealand has been used for the ear pads. Recognizing the dominance of Apple's iPod and iPhone® in the portable media market, the P5 comes supplied with a Made For iPod approved cable, which allows for speech and device control. It also comes supplied with a high-quality, standard audio cable with gold-plated plugs. Switching between the two is facilitated by the magnetically attached ear pads, which simply pop off allowing access to the cable.
Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin and Zeppelin Mini provide the best possible sound from an iPod at home, and now the P5 lets you take that great performance with you wherever you go. Bowers & Wilkins P5 is available from January 2010 To find your nearest Bowers & Wilkins stockist visit www.bowers-wilkins.com.
Square ear pads?....what the hell, was spongebob in lead for development design?
No, he's still with Skullcandy.
Yeah, just because Grado get away with bad "design" doesn't mean that others should follow suit.
iPod owners are skinflints when it comes to headphones, most sport the free earbuds or maybe some $40 replacements if the cat chewed the cable on the free ones. B&W are in for a shock if they price these in the stratosphere.
I love B&W products. They have so much "soul" in their design and their sound. But they won't do justice to the generic and "souless" sound of an ipod.
Buying high-quality audio components is useless unless you're listening to music mastered before the late '90s or to movies.
Thanks to the record companies destroying every recording with dynamic compression to make it "louder", the days of high-quality sound are over (unless you record it yourself or listen to truly obscure labels).
And the best part? NO ONE BENEFITS. We all lose decades of musical masterpieces, for no reason.
It's not bad enough that these jerkoffs are working overtime to ensure their own extinction and abuse former customers. They're also systematically destroying our entire musical heritage.
Those leather pads will never last.
I'll wait for some reviews and a chance to listen to these but if they sound good for the price they may soon join my B&W bookshelf speakers in the bedroom, if not, the Sennhieser HD 800 cans should do me good (i'm just guessing these will be in that price range)
except hd800 are open-type, while these are closed type. two totally different things.
Oh really? i'm sorry I didn't realize that had any relevance at all to what I was saying.... oh wait... it didn't
My point was that the HD 800s are amazing but B&W are no slouch, so depending on which is going to sound better for the money, my next headphone purchase may come down to those two choices, yes I know the advantages of open cans vs. closed and vice-versa, but that is irrelevant in my purchasing decision when they will be used solely in a personal space
lol
At least they aren't made of spray painted plastic.
huge fan of the swappable cord.
Those look like they would slip off your ears easily if your walking around.
how are these isolating when they sit on top of your ears?
Let's just hope B&W doesn't attempt to sell this on style and reputation alone. I also hope this doesn't become the new Bose, headphones people buy just because of the name, which frankly doesn't even mean anything.