Home Headphones Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Vs. Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Vs. Shure Aonic 40 Review

Last updated on Apr 13, 2023   7 minute read
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Bowers & Wilkins Px8

Bowers & Wilkins Px8

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Reasons why you might like the Bowers & Wilkins Px8

Overall Score 5.1 Represents average audio ecosystem compatibility score.

  • Weight of 320 g
  • Has Active Noise Cancellation (Anc)
  • Battery Life of 30 hours
  • Can Be Used Wirelessly
  • Has Ambient Sound Mode
VS
Shure Aonic 40

Shure Aonic 40

See price on Amazon

Reasons why you might like the Shure Aonic 40

Overall Score 4 Represents average audio ecosystem compatibility score.

  • Weight of 311 g
  • Has Active Noise Cancellation (Anc)
  • Battery Life of 25 hours
  • Can Be Used Wirelessly

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Vs. Shure Aonic 40 Review In Summary

Category Features Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Shure Aonic 40
DESIGN weight 320g 311g
has a detachable cable
can be folded
has a tangle free cable
cable length 1.2meters
has an over-the-ear foam
has stereo speakers
SOUND QUALITY has active noise cancellation (anc)
has passive noise reduction
lowest frequency 20Hz
highest frequency 20,000Hz
driver unit size 40mm 40mm
POWER battery life 30hours 25hours
has a battery level indicator
has a rechargeable battery
CONNECTIVITY can be used wirelessly
bluetooth version v5.2 v5
has usb type-c
has aptx adaptive
has aptx hd
has bluetooth aptx
has aac
has a 3.5mm male connector
MICROPHONE number of microphones 2only
has a noise-canceling microphone
EXTRAS has ambient sound mode
has in/on-ear detection
control panel placed on a device
can be used as a headset
travel bag is included
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Bowers & Wilkins Px8 Vs. Shure Aonic 40 Review In Detail

Design

Weight

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 320g
Shure Aonic 40 311g

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have a weight of 320g, these weigh below 320g, which we consider as the highest average a headphone should weigh for comfort during long use. We consider a lower weight better for the reason that lighter devices are more comfortable to move with.

Shure Aonic 40, at 311g are lighter than the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 by -9g

Has A Detachable Cable

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Detachable cables are cables that have connectors on both ends. One end goes into your headphone cups, while the other end is inserted into an audio source. Some new headphones, and not just the expensive ones, are coming with detachable cables, Bowers & Wilkins Px8 are one of those.

With a detachable cable, Shure Aonic 40 too can use alternative cables and if the cable is pulled, it will pop out instead of breaking.

Can Be Folded

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Shure Aonic 40 are foldable, which makes them more portable. Foldable headphones are easier to transport and take up less storage space.

Has A Tangle Free Cable

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Twisted headphone cables can be a great source of annoyance and inconvenience, Bowers & Wilkins Px8's cable is designed to minimize tangling. Constant twisting of the cables can also lead to microfractures in the copper wires, affecting sound quality, or completely damaging your headphones.

Shure Aonic 40 too have a cable designed to help prevent tangles.

Cable Length

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 1.2meters
Shure Aonic 40

A long cable ensures more freedom of movement, but remember that every cable based on the conducting material used has a certain amount of parasitic resistance, inductance, and capacitance. How much depends on the length and construction. Bowers & Wilkins Px8 comes with a 1.2meters cable.

Has An Over-The-Ear Foam

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Over-ear headphones have larger earpads that fit around your entire ear Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have a comfortable full-size form with earcups that fully enclose your ears. This design is loved for its increased sound isolation and the fact that it won't leak sound to your neighbors.

Shure Aonic 40 with this design offer potential for maximum bass and loudness levels.

Has Stereo Speakers

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have stereo speakers, what this means is that Bowers & Wilkins Px8's speakers deliver sound from separate channels on both left and right sides, this creates a richer sound and a better listening experience.

Both Shure Aonic 40 and Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have stereo speakers

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
See price on Amazon

Sound Quality

Has Active Noise Cancellation (Anc)

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Active noise cancellation uses more advanced technology to reduce unwanted ambient sounds. How it works, it detects and analyzes the sound pattern outside and inside the earbud and then inverts the soundwaves to cancel it out. In simple terms, it's like taking +1 outside (noise from your surrounding) and adding -1 inside (counter sound within the device) to make 0 hence "diluting" the noise.

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 allow you to listen at lower volume levels, causing less ear fatigue as you don't have to crank up the volume to overcome background noise.

Shure Aonic 40 too have active noise cancellation making both devices ideal for plane rides and morning commutes. Each may work with different noise cancellation modes, pick the setting, mode, or noise cancellation type that suits your commute or that enhances your relaxation time.

Has Passive Noise Reduction

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Passive Noise Cancellation uses well-designed ear cups to seal out environment noise. This is used for both in-ear earphones and over-ear headphones where the headphone itself will keep surrounding noise out. The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 sits tightly in place, creating an acoustic seal that reduces background noise and prevents your music from leaking out.

Both of these devices have passive noise reduction which means that also the Shure Aonic 40 isolates you from ambient noise instead of actively using technology to cancel it out.

Lowest Frequency

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40 20Hz

Low-frequency response measures if and how well a particular audio device reproduces low audible frequencies and if it makes any changes to the signal while at it. Shure Aonic 40's lowest frequency is at 20Hz, the lower the low-frequency response, the stronger and juicier the bass.

Highest Frequency

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40 20,000Hz

High frequency response measures if and how well a particular audio component reproduces high audible frequencies and if it changes to the signal on the way through. Shure Aonic 40's highest frequency is at 20,000Hz, the higher the high-frequency response, the clearer and crispier the treble.

Driver Unit Size

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 40mm
Shure Aonic 40 40mm

The driver unit is basically a mini speaker that produces sound in the device, its size dictates the loudness of the headphone. Bowers & Wilkins Px8 driver unit is 40mm in diameter, bigger drivers are more powerful and can produce better bass.

Shure Aonic 40 driver unit is 40mm in diameter, making both Shure Aonic 40, and Bowers & Wilkins Px8 similar in how loud their sound gets , many people have a misconception that driver units of a bigger size automatically produce better sound quality.

However, large drivers usually have difficulty reproducing high frequencies so yes, larger drivers are capable of generating louder sound, but this does not mean that they deliver better sound.

Power

Battery Life

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 30hours
Shure Aonic 40 25hours

If your headphones play wirelessly, cancel ambient noise, or enhance your listening experience with active features, their battery life will reduce over time. The device's battery life is given by the manufacturer, with longer battery life, you get to use it for longer and have to charge the device less often. Bowers & Wilkins Px8's battery life is 30 hours

Shure Aonic 40's battery life is 25 hours. Each time you recharge your headphones, they get a little less listening time. The effect is barely noticeable at first. But over a few years, you may find that your device, no longer plays for long like it used to.

Has A Battery Level Indicator

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have a battery level indicator, an indicator shows you when the device has a low battery. The battery indicator lights indicate the charging status of your headphones.

Has A Rechargeable Battery

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

A rechargeable battery is a type of electrical battery that can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or primary battery, which is supplied fully charged and discarded after use. Bowers & Wilkins Px8's battery can be recharged and used over again.

The Shure Aonic 40 too have a rechargeable battery.

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
See price on Amazon

Connectivity

Can Be Used Wirelessly

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 can be used wirelessly, wireless devices allow you more freedom of movement not limited by a cable.

The Shure Aonic 40 also can be used wirelessly

Bluetooth Version

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 v5.2
Shure Aonic 40 v5

Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard that allows data transfers between devices placed in close proximity, using short-wavelength, ultra-high frequency radio waves. Bowers & Wilkins Px8 has a v5.2

Shure Aonic 40 has a Bluetooth version of v5. Newer versions provide faster data transfers.

Has Usb Type-C

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support USB TYPE-C, an industry-standard connector for transmitting both data and power on a single cable. The USB-C plug is now part and parcel of most current laptops, phones, and tablets, it features reversible plug orientation and cable direction.

Has Aptx Adaptive

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support APTX Adaptive, an audio codec for Bluetooth devices that are developed by Qualcomm. It has a variable bit rate (between 279kbps and 420kbps), which means it can adjust the bit rate for different scenarios, such as listening to HD audio or reducing interference from other devices.

Has Aptx Hd

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support APTX HD, an audio codec for Bluetooth devices that are developed by Qualcomm. It supports high-quality 24-bit audio (at a bit rate of 576kbps).

Has Bluetooth Aptx

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support APTX, a codec used for transmitting audio wirelessly with Bluetooth. It is developed by Qualcomm and supports 16-bit audio at a bit rate of 384kbps.

Shure Aonic 40 support APTX

Has Aac

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support AAC, a codec that is used for Bluetooth audio. It supports 24-bit audio at 250kbps. Because it uses psychoacoustic modeling, it can provide better results than other codecs at a similar bit rate.

The Shure Aonic 40 support AAC as well. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encoders at the same bit rate.

Has A 3.5Mm Male Connector

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Being an industry standard audio plug, a standard 3.5mm male connector is suitable for use with all MP3 players and computer sound cards. This means that it is commonly used in stereo headphones to your phone or connecting your phone to an external amplifier, sound bars, your car radio, etc. Bowers & Wilkins Px8 has this connector giving it a wider range of connectivity with most of the sound devices out there. All plugs have at least a tip and sleeve with the number of rings that stand as a differentiating factor.

Shure Aonic 40 too have this kind of connector

Microphone

Number Of Microphones

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 2only
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 have only 2 microphones, more microphones result in better sound quality and enable the device to filter out background noise.

Has A Noise-Canceling Microphone

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 use a noise-canceling type of microphone, these microphones are designed to filter out background noise from the desired sound. Especially useful in noisy environments.

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
See price on Amazon

Extras

Has Ambient Sound Mode

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support ambient sound mode, which uses microphones to pass through ambient noises so that they can still be heard. It’s useful when you want to listen to music but also be aware of what’s happening around you, for example when you’re having a jog but would still want to be able to hear traffic.

Has In/On-Ear Detection

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 support in/on-ear detection, the sensors in the device can detect when they are removed from your ears so that the music is paused, saving battery life and improving your listening experience while at it.

Control Panel Placed On A Device

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

There is a control panel on the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 body, so you can easily access the volume control or remote without having to interact with a cable or another device it's connected to.

The Shure Aonic 40 too have a control panel on them.

Can Be Used As A Headset

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 can be used as a headset. A headset is one headphone or pair with a built-in microphone. Headsets can be used for apps that require communication i.e. Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, games with voice chat, mobile phones, etc.

Shure Aonic 40 can be used as a headset. since they have a built-in microphone

Travel Bag Is Included

Bowers & Wilkins Px8
Shure Aonic 40

Carrying headphones without a case, or putting them in bags without a casing can easily put them at risk of getting damaged. The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 come with their own special case or pouch, which is useful for safe transportation.

Shure Aonic 40 too have a travel bag or case included.