BOWERS & WILKINS P9 SIGNATURE HEADPHONES OLD-SCHOOL DRIVER TECHNOLOGY STILL HAS WHAT IT TAKES

BOWERS & WILKINS P9

SIGNATURE HEADPHONES

OLD-SCHOOL DRIVER TECHNOLOGY

STILL HAS WHAT IT TAKES

     These are odd times for busy

audiophiles. You might have a

US $5,000 system at home, but

chances are it’s gathering dust. Yet music remains

a big part of your life—it’s just that these

days it’s mostly coming to you from your phone.

Well, time to embrace the trend and get the

best experience you can. The new Bowers &

Wilkins P9 Signature headphones are a good

place to start.

The $899 P9 is not a discreetly compact

headphone of the sort typically designed for

mobile use. But by the standards of highend

headphones, it’s not large, and it also

has a jointed headband that allows it to fold

to a somewhat transportable size when not

in use. The P9 is also very energy efficient,

which means it can easily be driven by small

and portable electronics.

To evaluate the sound, I was fortunate to

have the help of Leonard Bellezza, who put

the resources of his New York City store, Lyric

HiFi & Video, at my disposal.

The P9 makes sound by means of

dynamic-cone drivers, which means they

RESOURCES_REVIEW

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I paired the P9 with several different signal

sources, but I found a real sweet spot with my

DragonFly Red digital-to-analog converter

(DAC)/headphone amplifier ($199). I used

the DragonFly to play songs stored with lossless

compression on my Samsung smartphone,

going back and forth between the P9

and the Audeze EL-8TI, a fully enclosed planar

magnetic model with a retail price of $799.

In general, the P9 had a slightly brighter

sound. Its response emphasizes bass, but

not overbearingly so, like many popular

headphones at the moment (I’m looking at

you, Beats). I was pleasantly surprised by

how well the P9 conveyed the intimacy of

spare, moody songs, such as Shelby Lynne’s

haunting version of “The Look of Love.”

The P9 also did very well with large-scale

orchestral pieces, such as Sir Simon Rattle’s

recording of Claude Debussy’s La Mer. And

the P9 really came into its own with rock

music. Particularly on rollicking, thumping,

hard-driving rock, such as Courtney Barnett’s

“Elevator Operator,” the P9 came across as

more gripping and compelling than the EL-8TI.

Greatly encouraged, I decided to see if I

could push the P9 beyond its comfort zone.

I found I could, but it wasn’t easy (or cheap).

I compared the P9 to the Audeze LCD-2

($995), with the music coming from a Moon

Neo 260D Transport/DAC ($3,000) playing

through a McIntosh MHA100 headphone

amplifier ($4,500). With this setup, the available

power was for all intents and purposes

unlimited, rendering the P9’s efficiency advantage

irrelevant. I also stuck to quieter,

small-ensemble music, that played more to

the LCD-2’s strengths.

The P9 put up a valiant struggle, but I had

to give this round to Audeze. Thedifferences

were not very stark: Listening to quiet and

complex passages with the P9, the details

are all audible and where they should be.

But with the open-back LCD-2 those details

have a lighter, more natural sound.

Nevertheless, unless you are contemplating

spending $7,500 on home-headphone

electronics, I unhesitatingly recommend the

B&W P9 headphones. The P9, together with

the DragonFly Red DAC/headphone amp,

are a true dynamic duo and an unbeatable

combination. —GLENN ZORPETTE

EMBRACE THE CELLPHONE: Paired with

a good external digital-to-audio converter,

the P9 headphones are terrific for music on

the move.

are basically small versions of regular audio

speakers. Though headphones incorporating

dynamic-cone drivers are still the most common

by far, the upper reaches of the market

are becoming increasingly dominated by

models based on a different technology,

known as planar magnetic. Here, a leading

manufacturer is Audeze, in Costa Mesa, Calif.

At the high end, “that’s all people are buying

these days,” says Mike Deutsch, a salesman

at Lyric. Planar magnetic headphones use a

strong magnetic field to vibrate a very thin and

relatively large diaphragm inside the ear cup.

The advantage is speed: The diaphragm can

respond very rapidly and precisely to changes

in the magnetic field. In a well-designed headphone,

this precision can translate into more

natural “decay” of sounds and, in general,

startlingly realistic audio. So I was particularly

eager to hear how the P9 compared with

comparably priced models from Audeze.