Bowers and Wilkins has just announced the release of its first ever over-ear headphones, the Bowers and Wilkins P7. Carved from brushed steel and aluminum, and cloaked in high quality leather, the headphones are a luxury take on the genre, leveraging B&W’s renowned speaker-design chops to produce an immersive pair of hi-fi ‘phones for the audiophile on the go.

Bowers and Wilkins claims the P7 offer an uncanny level of intimacy through a combination of dual cavity earpads that form to the head, and an extremely rigid driver set, constructed from stuff like aluminum-copper alloy voice coils and rigid polymer baffle plates to react more like a driver unit from a speaker than a headphone.

The headphones can be folded down to storage and travel, come with a removable cable with a single-button inline microphone and are claimed to offer excellent passive noise isolation, positioning them as an alluring choice for the business traveler looking for elite sound and classic style.

We enjoyed our last encounter with B&W’s transition to headphones, the on-ear P3, which provided brilliantly clear upper register paired with a midrange that was just a touch dark for our taste. We’re intrigued to see what the luxury brand speaker maker can do with a full sized set of super-cans. Particularly since these, based on appearances alone, look like a super-sized version of the P3

The Bowers and Wilkins P7 will be priced at $400, and will be available later this month.

http://www.digitaltrends.com

By Ryan Waniata