Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Transcendental sound but light on features

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi6’s more expensive stablemates, the B&W Pi8, were among the best true wireless earbuds I tested in 2024. I described them as “my new favourite earbuds for sound quality” and it will take a lot to wrestle that title away from them this year.

That the Pi6 get anywhere close, despite being £130 cheaper than the Pi8, is a testament to the British manufacturer’s talents. However, fantastic audio performance and comfort aside, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 are tricky to recommend ahead of options like the Apple AirPods Pro 2 (£229) and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (£219).

Their noise cancellation is less effective than that of those buds, while their feature set and customisability options leave a bit to be desired. Though a big step up on the Pi5 S2 they replace – and the cheapest way of enjoying B&W sound on the go – you’re better off saving up for the more refined Pi8 or looking for a more fully featured alternative elsewhere.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: What do you get for the money?

The B&W Pi6 cost £219, meaning they’re in direct competition with the most popular earbuds on the market, the AirPods Pro 2. On the specifications front, the Pi6 match up to those buds rather well.

They operate over a newer version of Bluetooth (5.4), support a wider range of codecs (SBC, AAC, aptX Classic and aptX Adaptive) and use slightly larger drivers (12mm vs the 11mm units found in the AirPods Pro 2). They possess the same IP54 rating for dust and water resistance, use a similar three-mic setup on each earbud to handle noise cancellation and calls, and can be paired with two devices simultaneously via Bluetooth multipoint.

The Pi6 are also available in a range of colours (Cloud Grey, Storm Grey, Forest Green and Glacier Blue), giving them an aesthetic edge over the AirPods Pro 2, which only come in white. So far, it looks pretty good for the Pi6. 

However, they don’t offer much in the way of additional features. Wear detection is present and correct, but that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing akin to Apple’s Conversation Awareness or Sony’s Speak-to-Chat, which detect speech and pause your audio, nor is there support for spatial audio of any format. Meanwhile, your equalisation options are restricted to Treble and Bass sliders within the Bowers & Wilkins Music app; most of the Pi6’s competitors offer various EQ presets and granular ways to tweak their audio.

To hit a lower price point, Bowers has dropped the wireless charging and Bluetooth retransmission features found on the Pi8. However, battery life is superior to that of the Pi8, with the Pi6 delivering up to eight hours of in-ear stamina (with ANC on), and the charging case providing two full charges to take total playtime to 24 hours.

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Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: What do they do well?

Despite using bio-cellulose drivers in place of the fancy carbon cone units found in the Pi8, the Pi6 put in a top-notch audio performance. While testing the buds side-by-side using aptX Adaptive on a Nothing Phone (2), I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Pi6 held up against their pricier stablemates.

The peaks of Zara Larsson’s vocals on Clean Bandit’s Symphony weren’t quite as crisp and controlled but there was a great overall balance to the Pi6’s reproduction. It was a similar story as Jason Derulo squeezed out the highest notes on Want to Want Me. The Pi6 fell short of matching their brethren’s top-end sparkle, but not by much. Very few earbuds I’ve tested shine so brilliantly when handling treble.

Every element of Jess Glynne’s Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself felt appropriately pitched within a soundstage of impressive scale and while I got a slightly better sense of instrument separation on the Pi8, this didn’t hamper the listening experience; the Pi6 proved engaging and enjoyable throughout. The DJ S.K.T remix of Gecko (Overdrive) by Oliver Heldens is a track with a thumping bassline and the Pi6 lapped it up, reproducing it cleanly with well-judged potency.

Given the extremely high bar set by the Pi8, it’s quite an achievement that Bowers has got the significantly cheaper Pi6 sounding almost as good. They do miss out on support for aptX Lossless, which means you can’t enjoy CD-quality transmission over Bluetooth, but I was more than happy with what the Pi6 were capable of musically over aptX Adaptive.

I also found them a pleasure to wear. They’re exactly the same shape as the Pi8 and sat comfortably in my ears for prolonged periods. Achieving a stable and secure fit was a breeze using the largest of the supplied eartips and these created an effective seal in my ears to help isolate sound.

I like the design, too. The finish isn’t quite as flashy and premium as the Pi8, but each of the four colourways has an assured elegance and is free of dangling stems, which is my preference when it comes to wireless earbuds. Compared with their predecessors – the Pi5 S2 – the Pi6 look a lot less bulky when worn and that’s a very good thing.

While I don’t love the touch control setup on the Pi6, the options you have at your disposal worked well. Play/pause is executed by a single press on either bud and these inputs were consistently picked up, as were those assigned to tap and hold interactions.

The last couple of areas in which the Pi6 performed admirably during testing are in-ear battery and call quality. Eight hours of in-ear stamina is ample for anything save long-haul flights and I found it an accurate estimate. While some buds may have given up the ghost towards the end of a gruelling six-hour journey to Devon, the Pi6 still had gas in the tank.

During Google Meet calls with colleagues and phone calls to loved ones, the buds held up pretty solidly in terms of vocal clarity. Background noise proved a bit of a nuisance during a gusty wander along the Devon coast, but overall the B&W Pi6 did the job well enough.

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Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: What could they do better?

Unlike the Pi8, which use proprietary B&W noise cancellation, the Pi6 use Qualcomm’s noise-cancelling processing. I didn’t notice a huge difference in performance between the two – the Pi8 take a little more impact out of low-end frequencies – but I don’t consider either completely proficient at blocking out external noise.

The ANC is to a level whereby you won’t find too many things disturbing your peace when music is at around 70% volume, but it’s not nearly as effective as that on offer from Apple and Bose. To its credit, Bowers acknowledges this but it does mean that if the very best attenuation is at the top of your wishlist, there are superior options out there.

There are also better alternatives where breadth of features and customisation options are concerned. Spatial audio support is a big miss in my opinion, and I wish the touch controls provided a bit more flexibility. As it is, you’re forced to choose between ANC/transparency assigned on the left bud and hailing your voice assistant on the right or having the left decrease volume and the right increase it.

It’s also worth noting that the two-band EQ option found in the B&W Music app is a downgrade on the five-band EQ available on the Pi8. This is unlikely to affect your day-to-day experience with the Pi6 much, but it does feel like Bowers is creating an unnecessary point of difference between the two buds.

Recent releases such as the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds and Sony LinkBuds Fit have introduced proprietary voice commands in addition to support for third-party voice assistants, an inclusion I’ve found very handy. JBL has long been a pioneer of cramming in convenience features such as the ability to control how loudly you hear your own voice when on calls, while Sony and Sennheiser both have technology that can switch audio and ANC settings based on your location.

Bowers seems content to play it safe by avoiding such features, presumably because it feels that they will detract from its reputation as a hi-fi-focused brand. That is not an unreasonable stance, but by pricing the Pi6 at £219, Bowers is courting a slightly different audience and I’d like to see the suite of features reflect that.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review: Should you buy them?

The work Bowers & Wilkins has put into revamping the design of its previous generation of earbuds has paid off. The Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 are very comfortable and look handsome. If you want the tremendous sound quality and prestige Bowers & Wilkins headphones bring to the table and don’t mind sacrificing some features to get it, you’ll be getting your money’s worth.

However, there are better all-rounders available for more mainstream consumers; the Sony WF-1000XM5, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds and Apple AirPods Pro 2 all spring to mind. And those with an affinity for the Bowers brand should gravitate towards the Pi8. The margins aren’t quite as wide as you might expect given the price difference, but they’re superior in every regard except battery life.