Make a huge saving ahead of Black Friday on these powerful-sounding B&W wireless earbuds

(Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

Once upon a time, Bowers & Wilkins' Pi6 wireless earbuds would've cost you £219. In exchange, you got great build quality and an enthusiastic sound with good amounts of detail. So how about all of this for £70 less?

Right now, these impressive buds have dropped to just £149 at Amazon, which is the lowest price we've ever seen for these powerful-sounding performers.

While they missed out on a fifth star in our review, coming up against immensely strong competition from rivals, at this price, we'd say they're seriously worth considering.

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 buds are a premium over-ear offering, yet affordable alternative to the brand's flagship, Pi8.

And design-wise, there's really not much difference – same shape, dimensions and even weight. In fact, when we placed them side by side during testing, we said: "It's pretty tricky to tell the Pi6 apart from the Pi8, a fact that unquestionably works in the former set's favour."

When it comes to the Pi6 feature set, there's plenty on offer, including handling 24-bit/96kHz audio transmission, thanks to aptX Adaptive codec support alongside the standard AAC and SBC codecs.

But where they really shine is through their noise-cancelling capabilities. While one of their biggest rivals, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, holds the top spot for ANC, the B&W buds have a seriously impressive offering, softening most background noises if not entirely eliminating them.

A couple of minor caveats worth noting: they lack spatial audio and wireless charging. But we think these are likely niche features for most people.

When it comes to battery life, the Pi6 buds match the Award-winning Sony WF-1000XM5 with around 8 hours playback when using ANC, 24 hours with the charging case, and the bonus of a 15-minute fast charge feature that will give you two hours of playback.

For audio, the Pi6’s 12mm drive units are essentially scaled-down versions of the ones found in the five-star Px7 S2e over-ears, which is no bad thing.

After testing, we said: "Their power and attack grant genres such as hip-hop, rock and heavy metal extra helpings of excitement, while their solid detail levels mean that you’ll still be in the picture no matter the tunes you choose."

While they don't quite knock our socks off like the Award-winning Pi8, a £149 price tag at Amazon certainly does.

MORE:

Read our full Bowers & Wilkins Pi6 review

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 vs Pi6: which B&W wireless earbuds should you choose?

Our pick of the best wireless earbuds: top pairs tested by our reviewers