Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: which premium headphones are top of the pops?

The arrival of any new Bowers & Wilkins product is always notable at What Hi-Fi?. The British brand is responsible for some of the finest hi-fi products ever made, so when its Px7 S3 wireless noise-cancelling headphones arrived recently, it only made sense to pit them against the highly rated rival pair from Apple.

Both the B&W Px7 S3 and AirPods Max are what we would class as premium headphones with price tags to match. Both were awarded five stars when we reviewed them individually and represent some of the best wireless headphones you can currently buy at this lofty level.

But that doesn’t help you to decide which ones you might want to own, does it? That’s why we’ve sat down with both pairs and directly compared them on everything from design and build to sound quality and noise-cancelling.

So, which pair of premium headphones most deserves to be on your head?

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: price

To paraphrase the great Tom Jones, it’s not unusual for Apple to charge a premium for its products, and the AirPods Max are no different.

In the UK, they currently sell for £499 (they’ve had £50 knocked off their original £549 asking price), but in the US and Australia you’ll have to shell out $549 / AU$899 for a pair.

While the Px7 S3 certainly aren’t what you’d call cheap, they launched at £399 / AU$699 (the US price is yet to be confirmed) and are a good deal more affordable than the AirPods Max.

**Winner: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3**

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: build and design

You might think that the price difference would be noticeable in the build quality and materials used, and that is true to an extent, but both pairs of headphones are very nicely made indeed.

The AirPods Max do feel slightly more premium, with their larger earcups and metallic finishes. The Digital Crown dial for controlling volume and playback remains beautifully engineered and responsive, while the headband pressure and hinges are both sturdy and well judged.

That the AirPods Max are slightly heavier (385g vs 300g) is more noticeable in the hand than on the head, but B&W's more lightweight and less-bulky design is likely to find favour as a more portable pair.

The AirPods Max's oversized earcups make quite the overt design statement compared to B&W's subtler profile. Both earcups are roomy enough for our reviewers, but the difference in cushion material makes a difference. The more breathable mesh fabric material on the AirPods Max stay cooler for longer listening periods, while the soft leather pads on the B&W can make our ears get sweaty rather quickly.

Neither pair folds up, but the pouch supplied with the Px7 S3 is much more serviceable than the so-called ‘Smart Case’ that you’re supposed to transport a pair of AirPods Max in, which doesn’t even cover them entirely.

It’s a bit like comparing an Audi and a Mercedes: both are well built and feel worth the money, and for many people it will just come down to personal preference, but we think the B&W Px7 S3 are just that little bit more portable and practical.

**Winner: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3**

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: features

A lot of Apple products work best when used with other Apple products, and that’s particularly true of the AirPods Max, which are seamless in use with multiple connected iOS products. Some of their features, such as personalised audio, head-tracking with spatial audio, and the use of Apple’s ‘Find My’ network, should your headphones go AWOL, are only available if you connect them to an Apple device.

They may be limited to a certain extent for Android users, then, which the Px7 S3's feature list is not.

Still, there are various features of the Px7 S3, including spatial audio and Auracast support, that are due to be added via a software update, although B&W hasn’t announced a specific date for this beyond a rather vague “later in 2025”.

As things stand, they still have far more comprehensive Bluetooth codec support than the AirPods Max, which only offer baseline AAC and SBC. The Px7 S3’s list includes those two, plus the higher quality aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless codecs, with next-gen Bluetooth features LC3 and LE Audio set to be part of the aforementioned update.

Both pairs of headphones support wired listening, which makes them sound even better. In the AirPods Max case, the cable required depends on which model you have. If you have the original Lightning connector edition, you'll need to buy a separate Lightning to 3.5mm audio cable; with the current USB-C edition, the included USB-C to USB-C charging cable will let you listen to lossless wired audio from other USB-C-compatible sources. However, a USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable does need to be bought separately, for £39 / $39 / AU$65. B&W includes the USB-C-to-3.5mm audio cable in the box.

When it comes to battery life, the Px7 S3 are the clear winners. You’ll get 30 hours out of them before they conk out, and you only need to plug them in for 15 minutes to add seven hours of play time. If you get caught out by a dead battery on these, you’ve only got yourself to blame.

The AirPods Max have a little less staying power. Apple claims they’ll last up to 20 hours between charges, although our testing actually found that estimate to be a touch conservative. That’s still a lot less than you’ll get from the Px7 S3, but in reality you’re unlikely to find it problematic.

A five-minute charge adds 90 minutes of listening time – handy if you’re about to leave for work and find that they’re running low.

**Winner: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3**

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: noise-cancelling and call quality

Noise-cancelling performance has become a key battleground for premium wireless headphones, and there is only one runaway winner here.

Neither of these pairs bothers the class-leading Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones on the ANC front, but both have different effects.

Both have a pretty natural approach to noise-cancelling, instead of that intense, vacuum-like suction effect you get with some models. Both do a solid job of blocking out low-level rumbles around you, but the AirPods Max are far better at cancelling out general noise like voices, traffic and damping down the sharp edge of higher-frequency noises. With the B&W, you still hear quite a lot of those mid-frequency noises come through that bleeds into the music you're listening to, whereas the AirPods Max are better are putting you in a cocoon of subdued noise so you can concentrate on the music.

Both have effective transparency modes, which can be handy when you need to remain aware of what’s going on around you. Overall, we prefer the AirPods Max approach to noise-cancelling.

Those noise-cancelling mics also come in handy for making calls, and speech sounds natural through the Px7 S3, with background noise sufficiently suppressed. Voices come through with greater clarity and fullness through the B&W. Our voices sound more upfront through the AirPods Max, but there is a slight synthetic quality around the edges of our voices, and more environmental noise comes through than with the Px7 S3. Both are perfectly fine for voice calls, with B&W sounding just that bit more natural and clear.

For their more effective noise-cancelling talents, the AirPods Max are the clear favourite here.

**Winner: Apple AirPods Max**

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: sound quality

These are both five-star headphones, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are both very sonically capable.

When the AirPods Max launched back in 2020 with such a premium price tag, we certainly didn’t expect them to be quite as good as they are. Our review highlighted their authenticity, detail, crispness and spaciousness – all qualities befitting such a nicely built pair of cans.

The AirPods Max are exceptionally well-organised and are great with vocals, but they have a particular talent when it comes to digging into the details of a track. They really shine in the mid-to-upper ranges. Put on Radiohead’s exquisite Pyramid Song and the cymbal hits really ring through nicely. These are headphones that really make your music sparkle.

Despite knocking on for five years old (the 2024-released AirPods Max model with USB-C introduced in 2024 has the same sound), their sound quality remains surprisingly competitive despite the fresh competition that has arrived since.

Switch to the B&W Px7 S3, and almost all of the above remains applicable – just even more so. The B&W are clearer and more detailed. They have more punch and muscularity than the AirPods Max, with better bass reproduction and just a bit more solidity all round, but especially at the lower end of the frequency range. There’s more grip to textures, too.

The AirPods have a richness to their sound that is immediately likeable and are a touch more open, but the B&W are subtler, more precise and more dynamic. As we said in our Px7 S3 review: "The effect of being immersed in the centre of your tunes is thrilling, amplified by those remarkable levels of detail the Bowers & Wilkins over-ears unveil. The earthy strings on Nick Cave & Warren Ellis’s Song For Bob have real bite and grip as the track’s forlorn heart is revealed, while the varying components of John Williams’ Duel Of The Fates – rumbling drums, punchy horn stabs, operatic vocals – blend authenticity with a thrilling sense of drama."

**Winner: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3**

Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 vs Apple AirPods Max: verdict

This isn’t a case of one pair beating the other into submission; you could buy either of these products and be very happy with your purchase. But we’re not here to sit on the fence. After a while, it starts to get very uncomfortable.

After lengthy deliberation, it becomes clear that the new Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 are slightly ahead in more areas: they’re better endowed in the features department (and will become even more so when that firmware update arrives) and get one over it comfortably for battery life, too. We prefer the way they sound, and while their ANC isn't quite as good, they are crucially a meaningful amount cheaper.

You will have your own opinions on which ones look better, but this is a good example of more premium materials not necessarily translating to a more premium experience. We do love the Digital Crown dial on the AirPods Max and the fresh range of colours that the 2024 (soft) update brought, but the Px7 S3 is a better overall portable package with that bit more subtlety and class.

It goes down as a win for B&W, then, with its sonic strengths and less premium price making them the better value buy overall. However, if you do you opt for the pricier AirPods Max – especially if you're a dedicated iOS user – you won't be disappointed.

MORE:

Read our Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 review

And our Apple AirPods Max review

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