Bowers & Wilkins launch the Px8 McLaren edition headphone

Bowers & Wilkins, the renowned British premium audio brand, has launched a McLaren Edition of its newest flagship wireless headphone, the Px8, with luxury British supercar maker McLaren Automotive.

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The Px8 McLaren Edition is built on the reference-standard sound quality of the new Px8, while the premium design honours the partnership with the luxury supercar maker, which has generated ground-breaking innovations for in-car audio.

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Introducing the Px8 McLaren Edition

To celebrate the McLaren and Bowers & Wilkins partnership and the high-performance hybrid McLaren Artura supercar in which the two companies’ award-winning collaboration features, Bowers & Wilkins has created a specially-designed version of its Px8 wireless headphones, the Px8 McLaren Edition.

Since 2015, Bowers & Wilkins has been responsible for developing the high-performance audio systems found in McLaren’s supercars and hypercars.

One of the world’s most respected audio brands, Bowers & Wilkins is famed for pushing the boundaries of loudspeaker capability to reveal as much of the original recording as possible – without ever changing or distorting that sound. This pursuit of perfection, instilled by founder John Bowers, is still evident today.

The partnership is built on firm technical foundations, which have already been recognised for three iF design awards for the system integrations of Bowers & Wilkins in the McLaren Speedtail, McLaren GT, and most recently, the McLaren Artura.

Bowers & Wilkins has worked closely with McLaren’s design and engineering teams to create and optimise the audio system found in the company’s first series production high-performance hybrid supercar – the McLaren Artura.

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Like its McLaren predecessors, the Artura features the latest speaker technologies, developed in Southwater, home to the Bowers & Wilkins research and development team since 2019 and only 30 miles away from the McLaren global HQ in Surrey, where its supercars and hypercars are hand-built.

The Px8 McLaren Edition features a Galvanic grey finish and Papaya orange highlights, the latter inspired by the famous Papaya orange, which originated in founder Bruce McLaren’s early racing cars.

Sharing McLaren’s obsession with technical and performance-led aesthetics, the Px8 McLaren Edition headphones offer wireless sound quality synonymous with Bowers & Wilkins.

The heart of the McLaren Edition Px8 is a stellar performance with outstanding detail, resolution and spaciousness thanks to all-new bespoke 40mm Carbon Cone drive units inspired by technology used in Bowers & Wilkins reference-quality loudspeakers.

The Carbon Cone drive units in the Px8 McLaren Edition are carefully angled inside each earcup to ensure a consistent distance relative to the listener’s ears from every point across the surface of each driver to produce a more immersive and highly accurate soundstage. The result is the best sound quality Bowers & Wilkins has ever delivered from a pair of wireless headphones.

Unparalleled high-resolution sound and noise cancellation

The Px8 uses Qualcomm’s aptXTM Adaptive wireless technology to ensure the best possible sound quality from compatible phones, tablets and computers. USB-C and 3.5mm analogue cable connections are also supported with both cable types included in the especially matching carry case that accompanies the product.

Whether using wireless or wired connections, the Px8 combines its ultra-high-performance drive unit configuration with powerful Bowers & Wilkins-developed Digital Signal Processing (DSP) to deliver outstanding, 24-bit, high-resolution sound quality from leading streaming services.

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The Px8 uses proprietary Bowers & Wilkins-optimised noise cancellation technology to effectively shut out unwanted noise – crucially, without harming musicality in the process.

Six high-performance microphones work together to deliver the best results: two measure the output of each drive unit, two react to ambient noise from the outside world, and two provide outstanding voice clarity with enhanced noise suppression.

A breakthrough in user experience

The Px8 McLaren Edition will use the same recently upgraded Bowers & Wilkins Music App for set-up and use. The Music App allows Px8 users to stream their chosen music directly from their mobile device to their headphones, with Deezer, Qobuz and TIDAL all supported.

As before, the Music App also simplifies the connection of the Px8 to a mobile device, supports fine-tuning of the sound through adjustable EQ, and allows owners to configure their preferred noise-cancelling mode, all while monitoring the headphone’s charge level.

George Biggs, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, McLaren Automotive, said:

We are delighted to unveil the Px8 McLaren Edition, which builds on the award-winning and long-standing collaboration between McLaren and Bowers & Wilkins. The shared ethos of pushing the boundaries, innovation and the pursuit of perfection is apparent in all products that both brands have collaborated on to date. With the new headphones, the immersive audio experience that all receive in our supercars can now go beyond the road.

Dan Shepherd, Vice President of Licensing and Partnerships Bowers & Wilkins, added:

We are tremendously proud of our long-standing relationship with McLaren Automotive, which is rooted in a shared desire to lead in performance. The Px8 McLaren Edition celebrates this partnership, extending the appeal of our industry-leading sound performance and McLaren’s DNA to the outside of the car.

Technical Specs