When a company has been making headphones as long as Sennheiser has, you begin to expect certain things from it. In this case, that list includes class-leading sound quality and a comfy fit. What I don’t usually expect is jaw-dropping battery life and conveniences that typically only Sony manages to offer.
With the Momentum 4 ($350), Sennheiser has completely redesigned its flagship headphones, ditching trademark elements of the line for a more generic look. However, the company has also overhauled its active noise cancellation (ANC) and tossed in a few new features to make your life easier. On top of that, Sennheiser achieves a whopping 60 hours of listening time with ANC enabled, easily doubling what you’d get from competing sets.
Design
For the Momentum 4, Sennheiser completely abandoned the design it consistently used since the first model. I’m not handing the company a design award, but the metal sliding mechanism to adjust the fit gave these products a unique appearance whereas a lot of headphones tend to look the same. Now, Sennheiser has adopted an aesthetic that blends in with much of the competition.
Indeed, the mostly plastic Momentum 4 now has earcups that rotate flat for both storage and wearing them around your neck. The headphones no longer fold in on themselves before you dock them in their carrying case. The earpads are still a softer leather material with plenty of cushion, and the outside of the headband is wrapped in a woven fabric. The rest of the Momentum 4, though, is a lot of plastic. Meaning, it lacks the premium look of the previous models.
One thing I do like about the new design is the arc of the headband. A lot of headphones have a flatter curve, so they have a wide look. For someone like me with a big head, the straight-on appearance is a bit weird, and it reinforces that I have a huge noggin. That arc is slightly rounder on the Momentum 4, and the headband attaches to the top of the earcups rather than the outside. It’s probably not a massively important thing for most people, but this is one of the few headphone models where I noticed the difference in how they look when they’re worn.
Another big design change for the Momentum 4 are the on-board controls. Up through the Momentum 3, Sennheiser offered reliable physical controls that saved you from the awkward feeling of having to repeat a touch gesture in public. This time around, the company went with touch controls on the outside of the right ear cup. The standard options are all here: play/pause (single tap), skipping tracks in both directions (swipe forwards/backwards) and volume control (swipe up/down). You can also alternate between ANC and transparency mode with a double tap. As frustrating as touch controls can be on headphones, these work well and I don’t recall any instances where I looked silly swiping or tapping over and over.
There’s one additional gesture – a pinch – that’s used to adjust the level between noise cancellation and ambient sound. Instead of going from 100 percent of one to all out on the other, this pinch or reverse pinch transitions at certain intervals, so you get a bit of both. For me, this is unnecessary because I’m all or nothing when it comes to those two settings. I never want some of both. Either I want to hear what’s going on around me or I don’t, so going from one straight to the other is no problem. I can appreciate the inclusion by Sennheiser, I just wonder how many people will use it – or remember it’s even there.
The lone physical button on the back edge of the right ear cup primarily summons your preferred voice assistant. It’s also the Bluetooth pairing and the manual power control. I specify manual here because the Momentum 4 will turn on when you take them out of the case or pick them up. They’ll also turn off automatically after sitting idle, if you have that feature enabled in the app.
Those auto power controls sound handy on paper, but I’d discover the headphones turn on when I moved them from one room to another, even if I didn’t put them on my head. There’s also this weird thing where if the headphones have automatically turned off, when I wake my MacBook Pro, they turn back on and reconnect just sitting on my desk. These frequent occurrences make what should be a handy feature rather annoying.
Between the lone physical button and the USB-C charging port, five white LEDs show battery level. When you get down to one lone red light, it’s time to find an outlet. They also pulse in sequence when the Momentum 4 is in pairing mode.
Software and features
Similar to other recent Sennheiser audio gear, the company’s Smart Control app offers access to all of the settings on the Momentum 4. Here, you can customize the sound with dedicated EQ sliders for bass, mid and treble and save anything you like as a preset. There are also pre-tuned Bass Boost and Podcast sound modes. For ANC, there’s a slider so you can decide on a mix of noise cancellation and ambient sound, or 100 percent of either one. You can also disable Sennheiser’s Adaptive ANC, a feature that automatically adjusts to environmental noise. There’s access to more granular features like Wind Noise Reduction level or setting the headphones to automatically pause when you activate transparency mode.
For calls, Sennheiser offers a tool called Sidetone. It’s a slider that gives you the ability to hear some of your voice so you end up yelling during conversations. You can set it between 0 and 100 percent, so it isn’t an all or nothing setting. Sidetone works much better than transparency mode alone, making calls much more enjoyable when you’re wearing headphones or earbuds.
Two of Sennheiser’s more advanced features require you to create an account in order to use them. I’m not a fan of companies doing this for headphone features, but I can also understand the need to do so when you’re dealing with things like location settings. First, Sound Zones will automatically adjust audio settings based on where you are. You can create up to 20 different ones, so when you arrive at the office or return home, the Momentum 4 changes to your preferred settings. Sony has been doing something similar for a while now, but Sennheiser debuted its take on it in March.
The other registration-required tool is Sound Check. This item helps you personalize the audio on the Momentum 4 with guidance on the best presets for the music you like to listen to. Sennheiser says you can use the feature repeatedly to create multiple modes for every genre, allowing you to get quite detailed in your customization.
Of course, the app gives you more basic things like battery percentage (in 10-percent increments) and connection management. A separate settings menu offers the ability to enable/disable on-head detection, automatic pausing and automatic power off. You can also choose between 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes and never for when the Momentum 4 will automatically turn off if you’re no longer actively using them.
Sound quality
Sennheiser’s earbuds and headphones consistently offer some of the best sound quality among all of the products I test – and that’s especially true of the Momentum line. The company has a knack for balanced tuning that still offers punchy bass where it’s needed and superb clarity in the details. It’s no surprise, then, that the audio profile on Momentum 4 is stellar. There’s a decent amount of customization in terms of sound in Sennheiser’s app, but the default tuning is so good I rarely activated any of it.
The first thing that struck me is how deep the sound is. In terms of both low-end tone and overall depth, there’s a wide soundstage where different genres are free to roam. Whether it’s the staccato synths and pulsing bass line on Sylvan Esso’s “Echo Party” or the myriad elements dancing on top of the driving beat of Beyoncé’s “Alien Superstar,” everything sounds like it was placed in an actual space, rather than just being compressed sound waves streamed directly to your ears. Even when there’s a lot going on at once, like that Beyoncé track, you can still pick out each element. Nothing ever feels like it’s been smashed together.
The Momentum 4 are the kind of headphones that you put on and you discover new aspects of songs you didn’t realize were there. On Maggie Rogers’ “Want Want,” for example, there’s a lot of atmospheric airiness to some of the instruments that doesn’t come across on some other models or earbuds. Things like the textured distortion of the bass guitar or the reverb on the drums.
When it comes to ANC performance, Sennheiser has made a big improvement. The noise cancellation on previous models was fine, but it didn’t come anywhere close to what Bose and Sony offer on their flagship headphones. With the Momentum 4, Sennheiser has narrowed the gap, especially with constant noise sources like sound machines and dishwashers. Bose and Sony are still better at blocking unwanted clamor overall, but the change from the Momentum 3 is obvious once you try this new version.
Call quality
For calls, Sennheiser has equipped the Momentum 4 with two beamforming microphones per side. Much like the ANC, the headphones do a better job blocking constant noise during calls than things like background music or television. The person on the other end can still hear you loud and clear, it’s just obvious you’re talking over top of the roar. Your voice also sounds better than most headphones and earbuds overall, many of which offer the audio quality of a speakerphone rather than anything with a hint of mids and bass.
The Momentum 4 can automatically switch to transparency mode when you make a video or voice call. And coupled with Sidetone that lets you hear yourself speaking, these are a solid option for completing either of those tasks. Plus, multipoint connectivity means you can take a call on your phone and easily jump back to a podcast or music on your computer.
Battery life
Sennheiser promises a jaw-dropping 60 hours of battery life on the Momentum 4, and that’s with active noise cancellation enabled. That’s double what most of the competition offers, where a lot of premium models can typically only muster around 30 hours. Of course, sometimes those battery claims don’t always pan out. It’s not uncommon for a company to come up a few hours short. Incredibly, that’s not the case here.
Over the span of several days, which included powering the headphones off manually and letting them turn off on their own, I managed 57 hours of ANC use. Sennheiser says 60 hours is achievable at “mid volume level, but I kept the audio around 75 percent the entire time and still almost hit the company’s estimate. If, somehow, you find yourself in a pinch, there’s also a quick-charge feature that will give you four hours of playtime in five minutes.
The competition
Despite Sennheiser’s mix of stellar sound and insane battery life, the Momentum 4 doesn’t quite have enough to dethrone Sony’s WH-1000XM5. Sony simply offers more features, like automatic pausing when you start talking, though it’s clear companies like Sennheiser are catching up with tools like location-based sound settings. The M5’s noise cancellation is better and Sony includes compatibility with its LDAC and 360 Reality Audio, on top of DSEE Extreme upscaling. Of course, the Momentum 4 has double the battery life and at full price Sennheiser’s offering is $50 cheaper.
I’m also a big fan of the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2. They offer more of a refined look than the Momentum 4, with impressive sound quality and better than advertised battery life. These are some of the only headphones I consider to rival Sennheiser in terms of audio. ANC works well and the Px7 S2 are plenty comfy to wear for long periods of time, but the headphones could use a little more polish with features like the ambient sound mode and customizable EQ. They’re also the same price as the M5, so Sennheiser is the more affordable option once again.
Wrap-up
The Momentum 4 is Sennheiser’s most complete set of headphones thus far. The company improved its ANC performance so it matches up better with the outstanding sound quality that was already a staple of the Momentum line. Conveniences like Sidetone, automatic pausing and Sound Zones make your life easier, but besides stellar audio, the main attraction here is the battery life. Sennheiser has doubled up much of the competition there and, perhaps even more impressively, has managed to do so while keeping noise cancellation active. The design is what it is, but everything else combines for a worthy contender.