Same old supreme Sennheiser sound, even if something else is missing
Given the Sennheiser Momentum’s previous trademark classy, sleek stylings and admirable refusal to look ordinary next to the competition, we are surprised to find the Momentum 4 Wireless opt for a plainer – dare we say ‘safe’ – design language more akin to that adopted by their rivals. It’s a bit like a wonderfully eccentric kid at school deciding to dial it down to fit in with their classmates. But, that first-impression dissatisfaction is thankfully made up for by everything else these new Sennheisers are and do.
The Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless are priced slap bang in the premium territory of noise-cancelling headphones. Their asking price of £300 is more or less aligned with Bose’s QuietComfort 45 and Noise Cancelling 700, and sits them between the Sony WH-1000XM4 and the (newer, more expensive) Sony WH-1000XM5. They undercut the Apple AirPods Max by a significant margin, too.
Impressive endurance
The Momentum 4 Wireless’s spec sheet is highly competitive. It’s difficult to look past the claimed 60-hour battery life, which isn’t possible only when the user is listening wired and at barely audible volume levels, but when active noise cancellation and Bluetooth are engaged. This impressive figure is twice that of many rivals, with the Sony XM4 and XM5 offering 30 hours and the two pairs of Boses between 24 and 30 hours.
How has Sennheiser managed to deliver such endurance (which does reasonably translate from paper to practice, by the way)? By cleverly implementing the amplifiers, apparently. It’s not often we are required to charge a pair of headphones only once during testing, and such longevity will surely be a blessing to those who use wireless headphones frequently.
It helps, too, that an automatic function powers down the headphones once they have been inactive for 15 minutes, with a touch able to wake them up. Still, if you are ever caught short by a low battery, it’s good to know they can be listened to wired without needing it – either through the supplied 2.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable or a USB-C to USB-C one (not supplied). A USB-C charging lead joins the single audio cable in the box, along with an airplane adapter and a fabric hardshell case.
Then there’s support for aptX Adaptive, one of the highest-quality Bluetooth codecs around, and which is backwards-compatible with aptX if you don’t own a device supporting the newer Adaptive codec. The new Momentums are also Bluetooth 5.2-compliant, meaning, am
