Objects of Our Time: Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3

Engineered beyond belief, does this object of our time point towards some dystopian future or does it shed light on what really matters today?

First thought: Why do so many high-end products have unspeakable names? Watches, coffee grinders, and many other upmarket goods speak an encrypted language of letters and numbers to tell the consumer that what they’re getting is new but not born in a vacuum. Signaling both progression and lineage, each higher digit suggests that the object at hand is at the top of the hierarchy, for now at least. Often, the complicated name also suggests specs, a subtle engineering flex telling you much about the product through code while also speaking to an aesthetic sense where numbers and letters feel more authentic than names dreamt up by marketing firms. After all, what sounds more serious? The Bowers & Wilkins’ Px7 S3, whose name suggests an updated level of calibration and dedication to sound, or names that refer to rhythmic units or fantasy worlds?

Second thought: Complicated names also suggest exclusivity through obscurity, which is the El Dorado of affluence, as you don’t want just anyone and everyone to have access to your riches. This, of course, is in contrast to Thorstein Veblen’s notion of conspicuous consumption, where the display of wealth is just as important as having it, and wasting it out in the open is regarded as a status symbol. It’s an outdated idea in many circles and the truly wealthy today cultivate tribal awareness without being loud about it by using details that only those in the know will recognize. What I like about the new Bowers & Wilkins’ Px7 S3 is that they present a baseline level of distinction by having the brand name vertically along the speaker covers but keep the exact line an open secret to be recognized either through the colors or other subtle details. By doing such, the Px7 S3 offers just a peak through the foliage into the forbidden paradise while also supporting a refined sense of Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of taste: “taste classifies and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make.”

Third thought: The press images of David Beckham wearing the Px7 S3 reveal the headphones' duality, classic yet contemporary, disciplined but subtly rebellious. Well-kempt yet tattooed, he embodies the modern luxury consumer who values control without spectacle. The campaign's restraint is its genius: Beckham isn't glorified as a celebrity, but framed as an archetype of the discerning listener.

Fourth thought: One of the most annoying things about your average pair of noise cancelling headphones is that they are often unable to eliminate higher frequencies. Thus, although they’ll get rid of all the cabin noise on a plane, you can often hear the engines and babies. The Px7 S3, however, have eight microphones, six of which are for noise cancelling. This might seem like overkill, but I find the idea of listening to something very quiet like Morton Feldman while the world around me is disorderly very appealing.

In a way, the idea of creating acoustic cocoons speaks very much to the aforementioned notion of contemporary luxury. Partly since the ability to shut out the world isn’t evenly distributed, but also since, again, luxury today is pianissimo, not fortissimo—which isn’t to say that these headphones can’t also deliver high-quality sound, even at loud volumes.

Fifth thought: Perhaps most interesting is that high-end headphones offer the user a level of control in an uncontrollable world. The Bowers & Wilkins sound app can be perfectly calibrated to do what you want them to. In an era marked by information overload and the endless scroll of digital life, noise-cancelling headphones like the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 become symbolic tools of micro-sovereignty. That is, they allow the user to frame their own sensory experience—to selectively filter reality, to silence what cannot otherwise be silenced.

Philosophically, it’s akin to stoicism: if the external world can’t be tamed, then turn that taming to your internal one. As such, the headphones become a technology of the self in a Foucauldian sense. Not just a consumer product, they’re a way of managing attention, emotion, and energy that signal not indifference, but strategy.

Dedicated Feature