Ray, who had done an extensive comparison here, writes:
I have just purchased the P5s and I do agree that the cable is flimsy compared to many other headphones and also the Jack plug adapter that comes with it is a cheap adage that can be purchased in any audio shop. I think that Bowers and Wilkins could have spent the extra on a better cable and gold plated adaptor. However, I have compared the P5s to my collection of headphones. I am in the business of music and have made some comparisons with them in build quality, sound staging, stereo imaging, clarity and trueness in sound frequencies. Although the P5s are not reference headphones like several of my others which have larger ear cups and are both semi open and closed, the P5s compared favourably. The build quality is very good considering that it is a traveling headphone and I believe they will stand up very well to wear. I prefer them to Grado's which have crap build quality, and I prefer the P5s sound to Bose headphones of comparable price.. I also compared the P5s with Sennheiser HD 595s, Denon AH-D 2000, Beyerdynamic DT 770s and 990s, and although the P5s are a smaller ear cup than my other headphones I liked their overall performance a lot. The leather headband and ear pads sit very comfortably on the ear and isolate the sound very well. Personally I think that Bowers and Wilkins did a good job with the design and if one is to argue that they are overpriced then I would argue that I have seen a lot of headphones that are overpriced but the P5s are definitely better value than most on the market for the price. My Sennheisers although having a well balanced and open sound have a totally crap build. My Danon's do not pick up the full frequency range, The Bayer DT 990s and 770s along with the P5s are the only headphones that I am happy with.
I completely agree with Brandon's comments about the diminishing quality of releases due to the effect of the "loudness war." I'm not a fan of compressed MP3, and I still buy most of my music on CD (or even SACD or Bluray Audio) and current mastering techniques clearly make music sound like crap. As an example, compare the 1986, 2004, and 2012 (so-called "25th anniversary") CD editions of Paul Simon's "Graceland." The sound quality has increasingly gotten worse on them. You can easily confirm this looking up the album on this website:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=paul+simon&album=graceland
Badly compressed MP3 is often a problem, by the elimination of dynamic range is a much greater problem.