Sennheiser Momentum 4 review: Excellent sound, great battery life

Another subscription-requiring tool is Sound Test. This section helps you personalize the sound on your Momentum 4 with a guide to the best presets for the music you want to hear. Sennheiser says you can use this feature multiple times to create multiple modes for every genre, allowing you to capture the details of your customizations.

Of course, the app gives you more basic stuff like battery percentage (in 10 percent increments) and connection management. The separate settings menu offers the ability to enable/disable overhead detection, auto pause, and auto power off. You can also choose between 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes and never for when Momentum 4 will automatically turn off if you are no longer actively using them.

Sound quality

Sennheiser headphones and earphones consistently deliver some of the best sound quality of all the products I test – and that’s especially true of the Momentum line. The company has a knack for adjusting the balance while still delivering powerful bass where it’s needed and superb clarity in details. Therefore, it is not surprising that the sound configuration on the Momentum 4 is excellent. There are a lot of audio customizations in Sennheiser’s app, but the default tuning is so fine that I rarely activate any.

The first thing that caught my eye was how deep the sound was. In terms of both lows and overall depth, there’s a wide soundstage where different genres are free to switch. Whether it’s the staccato synths and pulsating bass lines in Sylvan Esso’s “Echo Party” or the myriad elements that dance atop the helm of Beyoncé’s “Alien Superstar,” everything seems set. in an actual space, instead of just compressed sound waves traveling directly to your ears. Even if there’s a lot going on at once, like a Beyoncé song, you can still pick out each element. Nothing feels like it’s been pounded together.

Momentum 4 is the kind of headphone you put on and you discover new aspects of the song you didn’t realize were there. On Maggie Rogers’ “Want Want,” for example, there’s a lot of airiness to some instruments that isn’t available on some other models or earbuds. Things like the texture distortion of the bass guitar or the reverb on the drums.

When it comes to ANC performance, Sennheiser has taken a big step forward. Noise cancellation on previous models is strong, but it doesn’t come close to what Bose and Sony offer on their flagship headphones. With the Momentum 4, Sennheiser has bridged the gap, especially with constant noise sources like sound machines and dishwashers. Overall, Bose and Sony are still better at blocking out unwanted noise, but the change from the Momentum 3 is obvious when you try this new version.

Call quality

For calls, Sennheiser has equipped the Momentum 4 with two beamforming microphones on each side. Like ANC, headphones do a better job of blocking out constant noise during calls than things like background music or television. The person on the other end of the line can still hear you speaking loud and clear, clearly speaking through a roar. In general, your voice also sounds better than most headphones and earbuds, many of which offer speakerphone sound quality rather than anything with a hint of mids and highs. deep.

Momentum 4 can automatically switch to transparent mode when you make a video call or voice call. And along with Sidetone allowing you to hear yourself speak, it’s a solid choice for accomplishing either of those tasks. Plus, multipoint connectivity means you can make calls on your phone and easily record podcasts or music on your computer.

Battery life

Sennheiser promises an incredible 60 hours of battery life on the Momentum 4, and that’s with active noise cancellation. That’s double what most of the competition offers, where a lot of high-end models can often only last about 30 hours. Of course, sometimes those battery claims don’t always work. It’s not uncommon for a company to appear as short as a few hours. Amazingly, that is not the case here.

Over a period of a few days, which includes manually powering off the headphones and letting them turn off on their own, I managed 57 hours of ANC usage. Sennheiser says 60 hours can be achieved at “medium volume, but I kept the audio around 75% of the time and still mostly hit the company estimate. If, somehow, you find yourself struggling, there’s also a quick charge feature that will give you four hours of playtime in five minutes.

Competition

Despite Sennheiser’s blend of stellar sound and terrible battery life, the Momentum 4 isn’t enough to usurp the throne. Sony’s WH-1000XM5. Sony is simply offering more features, like auto-pause when you start talking, though it’s clear that companies like Sennheiser are catching up with tools like location-based audio settings. The M5’s noise cancellation is better, and Sony includes compatibility with LDAC and Reality 360, in addition to DSEE Extreme upscaling. Of course, the Momentum 4 has twice the battery life and at the full price Sennheiser offers is $50 cheaper.

I’m also a big fan ofBowers & Wilkins Px7 S2. They offer a more refined look than the Momentum 4, with impressive sound quality and better battery life than advertised. These are some of the only headphones that I consider to rival Sennheiser in terms of sound. The ANC works well and the Px7 S2 is comfortable to wear for long periods of time, but the headphones could use a bit more polish with features like ambient sound modes and customizable EQ. They’re also around the same price as the M5, so Sennheiser is once again the more affordable option.

Pack (again)

The Momentum 4 Sennheiser’s most complete set of headphones to date. The company has improved its ANC performance so that it better matches the superior sound quality that has been a staple of the Momentum series. Conveniences like Sidetone, auto-pause, and Sound Zone make your life easier, but besides the excellent sound, the main draw here is the battery life. Sennheiser has doubled down on much of the competition there and perhaps even more impressively, has done so while maintaining noise cancellation. The design is what it is, but everything else comes together for a worthy contender.