Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless Review & Rating

Though issues began out shaky, wire-free earphones are actually hitting their stride. At $299.95, the good-looking Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless earphones are among the many pricier choices in a class that is not precisely identified for worth. Luckily, they sound nice and could be tweaked to your precise style utilizing a companion app. They additionally supply glorious mic intelligibility—a rarity on this class—and a clear listening mode. Overall, a really excessive value is the one factor holding this pair again from our Editors’ Choice.
Design
Let’s begin with the battery case. Just about each one we have seen up to now is analogous in dimension and materials, and whereas this one would not deviate in its roughly 1.5-by-3.0-by-1.8-inch dimension (HWD), its grey, cloth-covered exterior is easy, unique, and stylish. It’s one of many first instances that appears like one thing you would possibly truly need to showcase. It’s additionally fairly essential, because the earphones solely get roughly 4 hours of battery life per cost, which is just about par for the course. The case holds 12 further hours of energy.
The earpieces snap into the case magnetically. A button exhibits battery standing when pressed—glowing inexperienced means greater than 50 %, yellow is lower than 50 %, and purple is lifeless.
Each earpiece has a flat, shiny outer panel emblazoned with the Sennheiser emblem. These panels are touch-sensitive, and have a big selection of on-ear controls. Placing the earpieces in every ear and holding a fingertip over the panels for 5 seconds places them in pairing mode. The left ear’s panel controls play/pause (single faucet), monitor ahead (two faucets), monitor backward (three faucets), and quantity down (maintain). The proper earpiece solutions calls or ends them (one faucet), rejects calls (two faucets), and raises quantity (maintain). You can activate voice help by urgent as soon as (when there are not any incoming calls).
The in-ear match is safe, although discovering the suitable eartips is a should. The earpieces are mild, however they lack a rubberized outer materials, which might assist in securing the match. They have an IPX4 ranking, that means they’ll face up to a light-weight splash, however not actual water strain or being submerged. They must be nice in mild rain or with sweat.
Tapping the suitable earpiece twice prompts a clear listening mode that lets you hear your environment. You get simply sufficient of the skin world to obviously hear somebody converse.
One method to mitigate the pitfalls of making an attempt to cram too many controls onto a small earpiece is to complement them with a well-designed app. The Sennheiser Smart Control app is free for Android and iOS, and presents a user-adjustable EQ, in addition to easy accessibility to the clear listening mode. Other than that, the app is anxious extra with micro settings, like whether or not music pauses when one earpiece is eliminated. The EQ alone makes the obtain value it, although it could’ve been good to see extra controls for much less reliance on the earpieces.
The mic presents glorious intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we may perceive every phrase recorded clearly and cleanly, virtually as if the mic have been wired. This is a rarity amongst Bluetooth earphone mics, for sure, and much more so amongst true wi-fi in-ears. So if being understood whereas on a name is prime precedence, you will doubtless discover these earphones well worth the excessive premium.
In addition to the charging case, Sennheiser additionally consists of USB-C charging cable and 4 pairs of silicone eartips in varied sizes.
Performance
With the EQ set to impartial, the earphones ship loads of bass depth. On tracks with intense sub-bass, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the lows are full, wealthy, and highly effective—if something, we would like to listen to slightly extra within the high-mids, although issues by no means sound muddy. The earphones may get fairly loud, and the bass would not distort at these prime ranges. Of course, you can even alter the sound signature within the app’s EQ. Used subtly, it could actually enhance the high-mids a bit if that is what you are after, and you can even add some extra bass push, or dial issues again.
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Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a monitor with far much less deep bass within the combine, provides us a greater sense of the final sound signature. The drums on this monitor can sound overly thunderous on some bass-forward in-ears, however right here, they sound full and wealthy with out getting too heavy. The guitar strums and vocals may use a bit extra treble edge. Again, the EQ is nice for tweaking this barely, however usually talking, this can be a balanced, wealthy sound signature with some brightness within the prime highs, and room for enhancing within the high-mids.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives sufficient high-mid presence for its assault to retain its punchy presence, although we’re used to listening to slightly extra right here. But the drum loop additionally receives substantial thump, that means there is a little bit of added depth within the lows, whereas the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with gusto. The vocals on this monitor obtain stable readability, and by no means any sense of added sibilance. Despite a bass-forward sound, the vocals do not do battle with the lows in your consideration.
Orchestral tracks, just like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, get some added bass presence that will not attraction to purists. It would not sound unhealthy, however the decrease register instrumentation is definitely pushed ahead right here. The increased register brass, strings, and vocals, nevertheless, retain their outstanding spot within the combine, regardless of a barely much less crisp presence than we usually hear.
Conclusions
Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless earphones sound nice. There’s stable bass depth with out going overboard, and you’ll tweak the sound signature to your liking. The mic readability and clear listening mode will doubtless attraction to enterprise vacationers, and the audio efficiency ought to attraction to simply about everybody. The barely cluttered on-ear controls and the very excessive value are the one actual complaints we now have.
If $300 is just too a lot, our different favourite true wi-fi choices embrace the Bose SoundSport Free, the RHA True Connect, the Jabra Elite Active 65t, and the JayChicken Run, all of that are inexpensive. We can now checklist the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless amongst this group, however their value retains them from snagging even increased honors.