By Sophia Agathangelou: As far as we're concerned, there are headphones and there are Stax, having said that, all Stax are open backed and we've yet to find an able portable 'energiser', so there's still a place in the world for closed back headphones e.g. on an aeroplane or in any other environment were you don't wish to disturb others. So to our Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature review.
Our hunt for closed backs is about convenience or portability, hardware quality that is able to withstand travel and acceptable sound quality.
What's that, acceptable sound quality? Let me explain that statement. Having searched far and wide and reviewed the top Audeze [very heavy and not in our opinion ideal for travel] and the much awarded and similarly exorbitantly priced Focal Utopia headphones and having done so with good gear of Chord Dave quality and above, in our opinion, Dad and I both say that no commercially available headphones today warrant more than a 6/10 when set against our well sorted listening room and reference system 'The Bunker'. Even the extraordinary Stax 'ear speakers' only warrant an 8/10 at best in our current configuration that we rate as the ultimate Stax system available today and it's not the combination you might think... [Click here for our first Stax review].
It was a lovely day, so Dad and I decided to drop the roof and go for a nice cruise down to, ...sunny Swindon? Well the good folks at Audio T had a pair of B&W P9 available along with a Chord Mojo and Hugo2, so off we went.
Stefan the shop manager is a lovely and very helpful man and after a few minutes setup we were up and running. First I must say that I love the look and feel of these headphones. I insisted that Dad try these not only because of their looks, but also because I have my own set of original series B&W P5 that I use for travel and they have not only lived through much use and abuse, but also an accidental scissoring by Dad and they do sound good and work well with my iPlod too. ;)
First we listened by simply plugging the 3.5 jack into my dad's old iPhone. Immediately we identified that the B&W P9 were quite bass heavy when used this way, but nevertheless the iPhone had no trouble supplying much higher volume than one would ever need to the P9s, so clearly they're easy to drive.
Of course the next job would be to see if the balance could be improved with the use of the Chord Hugo2. This time we used Stefan's current model iPlod. ;) We connected a camera adaptor the to the Plod and through that the Hugo2. The bass was then marginally subdued, but now the higher frequencies became fatiguing to Dad and I simple thought it was blah, ...not for me.
At this point a couple entered the shop floor listening room apparently intent on losing their hearing. They were auditioning those 'little wife friendly speakers' as they have been described, that we think sound like poo? Imagine trying to play those at concert volumes and listening to the sharpest tracks possible. So we quickly ran for our lives to the rear listening room, in order not only to avoid tinnitus on my Dad's insistence, but also to find some peace and quiet to properly review the Mojo/P9 combo.
This second listening room was lined it seems with some of our record collection. Muse 'The 2nd Law', INXS 'Kick', Nirvana 'MTV Unplugged In New York', De La Soul '3 Feet High and Rising', ...cool.
All that was lovely, but lovelier still was the sound now coming from the P9. With the Mojo the sound became smooth and the acoustic guitar on a Pink Floyd remaster was clear ...This was the first acceptable combination for my Dad and I have to admit, by a long way my favourite too. What I want to know is who made that farting and coughing noise on that Pink Floyd remaster? :)
On the plus side the Mojo is about half the size of the Hugo2, but on the minus side they have a reputation for running hot and Stefan advised that it was best plugged in to charge and then unplugged to avoid getting too hot. That's a drag! We apreciate plug in and forget or ergonomically and fool proof designed devices so this is a black mark from our point of view. Dad reasoned that the Mojo could be set on a relatively inexpensive 4 cm fin aluminium heat sink for charging, but here comes his first note of real concern, Chord give the likes of their Hugo2 and 2Qute a 3 year guarantee, but only 1 year for the Mojo and it stinks that Chord are not confident that the Mojo is built to last. On the other hand the Mojo only costs as much as one replacement KR Audio tube on our €18,000 LampizatOr Golden Gate.
Another concern is the mess of wires that are sure to get in the way of a portable unit, but Chord's site claims that this will apparently soon be a thing of the past, ...if Dad has an extra £500 come October for the 'Chord Poly' that is supposed to connect to the Mojo on the USB end and add wireless and SD card capabilities. How interesting that an add-on to make the Mojo wireless costs more than the Mojo itself. The word on the grape vine we have heard repeated is that there is something odd about the Mojo's pricing, that it should have been more than twice the price or that it was purposefully priced ultra competitively, perhaps to spread the word for Chord. We can only speculate that having ripped enough people off with wires that must cost no more than a few pounds to make being sold for thousands, that perhaps they had an attack of conscience and decided to give a little back, but we fear that the 1 years guarantee means it might be more to sweeten the blow when it fails 5 minutes after your short 1 year guarantee is up. ...My Dad the skeptic.
Having heard the mobile competition and not wishing to leave the confines of our i-devices and create more clutter in our lives, the fact is that we simply can't wait to try the Chord Poly and Mojo together and are quite hopeful that it could be our travelling buddy for the next few years. FYI Poly is the Greek word for many, so connect 'many' things to your Mojo I guess...
The P9/Mojo combo is a country mile apart from The Bunker, but then you can't carry that around with you in a bag, not to mention it's more than 20 times the price of a £1600 P9/Mojo/Poly combo. This combination is certainly not the best available in terms of absolute sound, but I think it's one of the best compromises on what to us is the compromise that are the headphones and mobile DACs available today, in terms of sound v pride of ownership v portability v price.
I liked the P9/Mojo combo playing acoustic guitar, Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal', Prince's '1000 X's & O's' and everything I could think of in our first short listening session. Our toes were tapping as we took turns trying to find tracks that might trip up this smooth articulate and laid back duo. There is good isolation from the outside world and we had to take the P9 off in order to hear each other speak and they also seemed acceptably quiet for semi open back headphones when played at normal fun listening levels.
We asked and were informed by Stefan that the P9 were well run in on their bench to insure that customers would get the best impression and that this is their general practise at the store especially to help people popping in during their lunch break. I'm paraphrasing Stefan's words. These are my first impressions. ...I should also mention that we have no connection to the store except that they had these available for us to test. Also Dad says I should add that these are our opinions and we hope you don't just take our word for it, but make sure you like these in combination with your own music and ears.
Thank you for reading my review. :)
Edited by Angelo Agathangelou on Sophia Agathangelou's final approval.
Our hunt for closed backs is about convenience or portability, hardware quality that is able to withstand travel and acceptable sound quality.What's that, acceptable sound quality? Let me explain that statement. Having searched far and wide and reviewed the top Audeze [very heavy and not in our opinion ideal for travel] and the much awarded and similarly exorbitantly priced Focal Utopia headphones and having done so with good gear of Chord Dave quality and above, in our opinion, Dad and I both say that no commercially available headphones today warrant more than a 6/10 when set against our well sorted listening room and reference system 'The Bunker'. Even the extraordinary Stax 'ear speakers' only warrant an 8/10 at best in our current configuration that we rate as the ultimate Stax system available today and it's not the combination you might think... [Click here for our first Stax review].
It was a lovely day, so Dad and I decided to drop the roof and go for a nice cruise down to, ...sunny Swindon? Well the good folks at Audio T had a pair of B&W P9 available along with a Chord Mojo and Hugo2, so off we went.
Stefan the shop manager is a lovely and very helpful man and after a few minutes setup we were up and running. First I must say that I love the look and feel of these headphones. I insisted that Dad try these not only because of their looks, but also because I have my own set of original series B&W P5 that I use for travel and they have not only lived through much use and abuse, but also an accidental scissoring by Dad and they do sound good and work well with my iPlod too. ;)
First we listened by simply plugging the 3.5 jack into my dad's old iPhone. Immediately we identified that the B&W P9 were quite bass heavy when used this way, but nevertheless the iPhone had no trouble supplying much higher volume than one would ever need to the P9s, so clearly they're easy to drive.
Of course the next job would be to see if the balance could be improved with the use of the Chord Hugo2. This time we used Stefan's current model iPlod. ;) We connected a camera adaptor the to the Plod and through that the Hugo2. The bass was then marginally subdued, but now the higher frequencies became fatiguing to Dad and I simple thought it was blah, ...not for me.
At this point a couple entered the shop floor listening room apparently intent on losing their hearing. They were auditioning those 'little wife friendly speakers' as they have been described, that we think sound like poo? Imagine trying to play those at concert volumes and listening to the sharpest tracks possible. So we quickly ran for our lives to the rear listening room, in order not only to avoid tinnitus on my Dad's insistence, but also to find some peace and quiet to properly review the Mojo/P9 combo.
This second listening room was lined it seems with some of our record collection. Muse 'The 2nd Law', INXS 'Kick', Nirvana 'MTV Unplugged In New York', De La Soul '3 Feet High and Rising', ...cool.
All that was lovely, but lovelier still was the sound now coming from the P9. With the Mojo the sound became smooth and the acoustic guitar on a Pink Floyd remaster was clear ...This was the first acceptable combination for my Dad and I have to admit, by a long way my favourite too. What I want to know is who made that farting and coughing noise on that Pink Floyd remaster? :)On the plus side the Mojo is about half the size of the Hugo2, but on the minus side they have a reputation for running hot and Stefan advised that it was best plugged in to charge and then unplugged to avoid getting too hot. That's a drag! We apreciate plug in and forget or ergonomically and fool proof designed devices so this is a black mark from our point of view. Dad reasoned that the Mojo could be set on a relatively inexpensive 4 cm fin aluminium heat sink for charging, but here comes his first note of real concern, Chord give the likes of their Hugo2 and 2Qute a 3 year guarantee, but only 1 year for the Mojo and it stinks that Chord are not confident that the Mojo is built to last. On the other hand the Mojo only costs as much as one replacement KR Audio tube on our €18,000 LampizatOr Golden Gate.
Another concern is the mess of wires that are sure to get in the way of a portable unit, but Chord's site claims that this will apparently soon be a thing of the past, ...if Dad has an extra £500 come October for the 'Chord Poly' that is supposed to connect to the Mojo on the USB end and add wireless and SD card capabilities. How interesting that an add-on to make the Mojo wireless costs more than the Mojo itself. The word on the grape vine we have heard repeated is that there is something odd about the Mojo's pricing, that it should have been more than twice the price or that it was purposefully priced ultra competitively, perhaps to spread the word for Chord. We can only speculate that having ripped enough people off with wires that must cost no more than a few pounds to make being sold for thousands, that perhaps they had an attack of conscience and decided to give a little back, but we fear that the 1 years guarantee means it might be more to sweeten the blow when it fails 5 minutes after your short 1 year guarantee is up. ...My Dad the skeptic.
Having heard the mobile competition and not wishing to leave the confines of our i-devices and create more clutter in our lives, the fact is that we simply can't wait to try the Chord Poly and Mojo together and are quite hopeful that it could be our travelling buddy for the next few years. FYI Poly is the Greek word for many, so connect 'many' things to your Mojo I guess...
The P9/Mojo combo is a country mile apart from The Bunker, but then you can't carry that around with you in a bag, not to mention it's more than 20 times the price of a £1600 P9/Mojo/Poly combo. This combination is certainly not the best available in terms of absolute sound, but I think it's one of the best compromises on what to us is the compromise that are the headphones and mobile DACs available today, in terms of sound v pride of ownership v portability v price.
I liked the P9/Mojo combo playing acoustic guitar, Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal', Prince's '1000 X's & O's' and everything I could think of in our first short listening session. Our toes were tapping as we took turns trying to find tracks that might trip up this smooth articulate and laid back duo. There is good isolation from the outside world and we had to take the P9 off in order to hear each other speak and they also seemed acceptably quiet for semi open back headphones when played at normal fun listening levels.
We asked and were informed by Stefan that the P9 were well run in on their bench to insure that customers would get the best impression and that this is their general practise at the store especially to help people popping in during their lunch break. I'm paraphrasing Stefan's words. These are my first impressions. ...I should also mention that we have no connection to the store except that they had these available for us to test. Also Dad says I should add that these are our opinions and we hope you don't just take our word for it, but make sure you like these in combination with your own music and ears.
Thank you for reading my review. :)
Edited by Angelo Agathangelou on Sophia Agathangelou's final approval.
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