B&W P5

Bought my P5's at Audio T and got a small discount because of the damaged box, but the headphones are fine.

The sound is excellent. I have set my EQ on my iPod and iPhone to off and the sound is much more natural.

Played some downloaded songs from the Society of Sound on them, the binaural recordings and they sound brilliant. Can't stop playing the tracks.

By the way when you register them you get a few months of free downloads, well worth taking advantage of.

I would recommend them. A tight fit, but a lovely clear sound and a great isolator from outside sounds when listening.

You can easily hear the difference in quality between different compressed recordings too. I had to make some changes to the iTUNES settings to improve the quality further.

The bag they come in is neat too. Pricey, but excellent product!

After a week of using them, I took them back to the Apple Store. I honestly started to detest them over time. They just seem too in-practical for day to day use. For starters, it takes a while to get a nice snug fit on your head. Secondly, the sound while in a noisy environment really didn't sound to impressive. And last, when you wear them out, they look rather silly IMO. I will stick with my Beats for the time.

It is the first time I have ever taken a disliking to a B&W product.

I really do wish B&W would put the price down to let's say, �199, or maybe �150 if they could get it that low. At a price like that, I would of kept them. I was sitting with my P5's, pondering, why did I just spend �250 on these, hence me taking them back to the store.

Totally understand ajharris comments. I live in Sydney and have just spent aus$500 on these and I was seriously considering taking them back. I already have a pair of Grado sr80s but didn't want to use them for iPod use ( & I needed replacement earpads which are a nightmare to get here). Went to Apple store & got the P5s, came home and the postie had delivered replacement Grado earpads that I had ordered 6 weeks ago ( and didn't expect to turn up). Cue side-by-side comparison..I have to say they are not as good as the grados  and that made me want to take them back to the Apple store as they are twice as expensive as the Grados and it was hard for me to justify keeping them.

Without the Grados to compare them to, I think I would have been happy, as the P5s on their own, are really lovely sounding headphones, its just that IMHO Grados are better musically. However, when you factor in the P5s looks , comfort and versatility, and I think they are actually an excellent compromise but yes, a little over-priced.

I have also found that both headphones sound so very very different depending on the music & recording quality and am fast learning that the world of headphones is not quite as two-dimensional as I though it was.

On reflection I decided to keep the P5s , they really are very good and are more than something just to listen to.

Bought these two weeks ago and I love them.  I use them for travel, on Ipod, Iphone, mac and with my Onkyo and find them superb across all my music.  Downloaded some flac as while and you really see what they can do.  Take a while to settle in and improved after heavy playing over first few days.  I find them really comfortable and easy to use, great design, great sound, love them.  Really dont understand some of the negative feedback.   Look silly?  these are cool as **!

I purchased these this morning & I have been listening to them all day and have come to the conclusion that they are just superb! For my main HI-FI system I use sennheiser HD650'S & was expecting the B&W P5's not to be as good as the HD650'S which they're not, but they are a very good set of headphones indeed with a very tight tolerance of +/-1dB at 1kHz for the left & right channels. I like the B&W P5's  a lot!

Well, just got these headphones and I'm rather pleased with them. Absolutely love the feel (and smell) and there's no doubt these feel somewhat premium. I currently own: Grado SR80s, Bang&Olufsen A8s and Klipsch Custom-3s. Each serve a specific purpose, the Grado's for in-home listening hooked up to my NAD amp, the Bang&Olufsen's for portable earbuds and the Klipsch's for my bass playing (IEMs) and "silent" monitoring for when I can't use my M-Audio monitors. The P5's came in to play the role of mobility where the A8's failed. Although I adore my B&Os they aren't "all rounders" since they're open-back earbuds and kind of weak on the deep-bass spectrum. So far I've found the P5s to be magnificent, even with 320kbps AAC files on my iPhone 4. My only complaints are: the high frequencies on bright (or rubbish) recordings can be a tad annoying, that they can be "sensitive" to positioning on my head (sound varies) and that the noise isolation isn't what I hoped after reading the reviews (although is more than sufficient). Low end is remarkably punchy and tight, lovely midrange, great high end (albeit the aforementioned issue); soundstage isn't surprising but I found them to be plenty for a closed back supra-aural headphone. They won't quite match the sonic performance of the Grado's (even when properly amplified) but are FAR more comfortable and sturdier, not to mention the benefits outside the home from the closed back design. Well worth the $300, I recommend them.Thanks Bowers & Wilkins! PS: bear in mind I don't have a particularly huge head but have to use them nearing the maximum of their size, so if you have a humongous head you might wanna try them out first.