Sony WF-SP800N vs Bowers & Wilkins PI3

The Sony WF-SP800N is a great Earphone for its $148 asking price.

The Bowers & Wilkins PI3, however, while a reasonable product for $147, doesn't stack up against its competitors quite as well. If you're considering Earphones in the $130 range, you might want to check out some better options.

The Sony WF-SP800N has done great in quite a few roundups from some of the most highly trusted sources available, such as Rtings, CNET, and PCmag, which perform high-quality in-depth testing. It got awarded the "Best Sony Headphones For Sports" title by Rtings, "Best noise canceling for runners" by CNET, and "Best for Most Features" by PCmag in their respective roundups. Earning that much praise from such respected sources is undoubtedly an impressive accomplishment.

Moving on to the Bowers & Wilkins PI3: it was unable to reach the very top of any roundups from sources that conduct reliable and unbiased testing. Nonetheless, it still managed to impress reviewers from a number of such sites, like What Hi-Fi?, Tech Advisor, PCmag, Expert Reviews, Techradar, TrustedReviews, and Wirecutter (NYTimes), enough for them to include them on those lists.

We examined all of the review data that we could find and first took a look at sources that reviewed both of them, like What Hi-Fi?, Techradar, and PCmag, and found that they haven't shown a preference for either product.

Then we checked which sources liked these two Earphones best and found that the Sony WF-SP800N got its highest, 10, review score from reviewers at What Hi-Fi?, whereas the Bowers & Wilkins PI3 earned its best score of 10 from What Hi-Fi?.

Lastly, we averaged out all of the reviews scores that we could find on these two products and compared them to other Earphones on the market. We learned that both of them performed far better than most of their competitors - the overall review average earned by Earphones being 7.3 out of 10, whereas the Sony WF-SP800N and Bowers & Wilkins PI3 managed averages of 8.0 and 8.6 points, respectively.

Due to the difference in their prices, however, it's important to keep in mind that a direct Sony WF-SP800N vs. Bowers & Wilkins PI3 comparison might not be entirely fair - some sources don't take value for money into account when assigning their scores and therefore have a tendency to rate more premium products better.