At the beginning of August, Sennheiser released the successor to the almost legendary Momentum Wireless 3, which was able to convince not only thanks to its stainless steel look in our test from 2019. In the course of modernization, the look had to give way to a simpler design in the new edition. However, the fourth iteration wants to have improved further in terms of sound and battery life. Whether this has succeeded and what the over-ear headphones have up their sleeve, clarifies our Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 Test.
Technical data
| Headphone type | Over-ear (closed) |
| Bluetooth version | 5.2 |
| Bluetooth codecs | SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX Adaptive |
| Maximum operating range | 12m (without obstacle) |
| Battery life | Up to 60 hrs |
| Charge Time | 2 hrs. complete; 10 minutes for 6 hrs. playback |
| Driver | 42 mm (dynamic) |
| Frequency response (headphones) | 6 Hz to 22,000 Hz |
| Sensitivity (headphones) | 106 dB SPL (1 kHz / 0 dB FS) |
| Frequency response (microphone) | 50 Hz to 10,000 Hz |
| Weight | 294.5g (without cable) |
| Connectors | USB Type-C; 2.5mm jack |
| Color options | Black, White |
| Price | € 267.00 * |
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 review: the scope of delivery
The Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 comes in a primarily white box, which has quite a lot to offer in terms of content. The manufacturer places its new over-ear top model in a sturdy hard-cover transport case with the manufacturer’s logo emblazoned on the top.
Inside you’ll find – besides the headphones – a whole bunch of accessories, including a roughly 1.2 meter USB-A to USB-C cable for charging the headphones, a 2.5 mm to 3.5 mm jack cable and an airplane adapter, as well as the obligatory instructions and notes.
Design and workmanship
- Simple, unexciting design
- Flat ear cups
- Fabric cover on headband
The high-quality and extravagant appearance of the Momentum 3 has unfortunately fallen a bit by the wayside with its successor. If you could still filter out the third generation from the broad mass by its iconic stainless steel bracket, the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 presents itself much plainer.
The slightly curved, round ear cups also had to give way to a flat plastic counterpart in the new edition. The headband is now also made of hard plastic and therefore does not look quite as elegant as it did almost three years ago. Only the fabric covering on the outside of the headband is reminiscent of the luxurious design of the third version – and is also the only area where the manufacturer’s logo can be found.
Quite obviously, Sennheiser took inspiration from the competition here and approaches the Sony WH-1000XM4 (our review), as well as its successor, in terms of design. Nevertheless, the Sennheiser does not look cheap at all, despite its plastic construction.
The high-quality-looking leather ear pads, as well as the reduced controls and ports, are especially noticeable. While the predecessor was still operated purely with buttons, the Momentum 4 now relies on a modern touch control.
Accordingly, there is only one physical button on the headphones and that is in the form of the power button on the outside of the right ear cup, directly below the headband. Below that, you’ll find five LEDs that indicate the battery level, as well as the USB-C and headphone input.
Processing of the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4
- Good build quality
- Extremely susceptible to fingerprints
Despite a large plastic content, the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 definitely feels high-quality and can largely convince in terms of workmanship. However, the headband is, for example, much narrower than that of the competition from Sony or Bose – whether this is a possible weak point in the long run, however, cannot be said within the short test time.
What can be said, however, is that the headphones are extremely susceptible to fingerprints. Especially on the outer sides of the ear cups, which are responsible for the operation. Here, the matte finishes of the similarly high-priced competition are much more resistant.
Comfort
- Relatively low weight
- Soft ear cushions with a large amount of space
- Convincing wearing comfort
The wearing comfort is much better, although the genuine leather ear pads have also fallen victim to the austerity measures and had to make way for artificial leather copies. However, these are nice and soft and have a pleasing thickness that allows the headphones to sit comfortably on the head even in the long run.
The ear pads are around 2.5 cm thick, and the headband is 2 cm at its widest point. The space inside is also convincing. Here, you have 4 centimeters in width and 6 centimeters in height at your disposal, which means that even large ears can definitely find room. With a weight of 294.5 grams (without cable), the Momentum 4 is in the mid-range segment – a Creative Zen Hybrid (our test) weighs another 23.5 grams less, for example. In return, the Sennheiser is a bit more comfortable.
I also really like the passive sealing of the ear cushions, which block out a considerable amount of ambient noise even when they are turned off. The ear cups also rotate 90 degrees (and even in both directions), so you can wear the headphones around your neck. Overall, I’m very happy with the wearing comfort.
Features and battery life
- Modern Bluetooth 5.2 with long range
- Smart pause function
- Multipoint support
When it comes to features, the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 actually leaves nothing to be desired. Wirelessly, the over-ear headphones transmit in the modern Bluetooth 5.2 standard and achieve a convincing range of about 12 meters to the audio source.
The manufacturer does not mention an official IP certification, but thanks to Multipoint, the headphones can be connected to two audio sources at the same time. Particularly practical, for example, to listen to music on the PC and accept calls on the smartphone at the same time.
On top of that, there’s a handy smart pause feature. If you take off the headphones, playback is automatically paused and resumed as soon as you put the Momentum 4 back on. This feature had to endure criticism in some tests, but honestly:
In our Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 review, the automatic pause and playback worked flawlessly. As soon as you take off the headphones, the music is stopped and resumed almost instantaneously. Whether this is related to the updated firmware to version 2.9.12, I cannot say. But the whole thing always works reliably. However, you can also disable the function in the companion app if desired.
Battery life and charging time
- Impressive 60 hours of battery life
- Fast charging with 6 hrs. in 10 minutes
Battery life is one of the Momentum Wireless 4’s biggest strengths, as a whopping 60 hours of playback is the maximum possible – depending on volume and codec, of course. A simply outstanding value, with which Sennheiser is currently unrivaled at the top.
But charging is also relatively quick. The headphones take an average of two hours to fully charge via USB-C, but just 10 minutes on the cable is enough for six hours of music enjoyment. A value that is also more than respectable.
Operation of the Momentum 4
- Intuitive and precise touch controls
- Stepless switching between ANC and transparency mode did not work
As already mentioned, the new fourth over-ear headphones deviates from the familiar control concept of its predecessors. So now Sennheiser also relies on a touch control, which is implemented via the right ear cup.
Touch and swipe gestures are used here, which cover almost every conceivable application. You can pause and resume playback with a single touch, while a double tap toggles between ANC and transparency mode.
Swiping to the right or left switches to the next or previous song, and up and down increases or decreases the volume. The call control is similar.
Basically, the operating concept quickly becomes second nature and works nicely and precisely. Only the gesture to smoothly switch from ANC to transparency mode refused to work in our test. Actually, you have to pull two fingers apart or together, but nothing happened in the test.
Only turning on and off, muting the microphone and calling up the voice assistant is done via the physical button.
Audio quality, ANC and microphone
- Too bass-heavy in the default setting
- After fine-tuning, superior, airy sound
- Lush, clear bass and intelligible vocals
Sennheiser’s new headphones rely on dynamic drivers with a diameter of 42 mm, which can cover an amazingly wide frequency band from 6 Hz to 22,000 Hz. Qualcomm’s high-resolution Bluetooth codecs aptX and aptX Adaptive ensure a correspondingly high feed.
By default, though, you’ll have to fine-tune the sound a bit with the help of the companion app, which has a “bass boost” enabled that really pushes the low end to the forefront – so much so that eardrums start dancing beyond the 80-percent mark.
For electro fans maybe quite nice, but for me personally much too bass-heavy. So out with the boost and already sound the Momentum 4 significantly better and rounder. Personally, I even lowered the bass tones a bit, but that’s a matter of taste.
Basically, however, the headphones deliver not only voluminous, but also very precise bass, and that down to the lows. The mids are also reproduced nicely clear and detailed, and comparatively warm. I particularly liked the spaciousness and airiness within the sound with a clear voice reproduction.
I do have to offer a bit of criticism, though, because in the default setting, the highs – while nicely detailed and clear – are tuned a bit too sharp. In many songs, this makes for an exhausting sound image, because sibilants in particular are reproduced too sharply. But you can also get a grip on this problem by using the equalizer.
Lower the treble by 2dB and the sound is right across the board. And yet: Many competitors manage the tuning out-of-the-box much better.
ANC and transparency mode
- Very good active noise cancellation
- ANC with no impact on sound
- Good transparency mode
Improved shows compared to the direct predecessor also the active noise cancellation (ANC). This now works adaptively and thus adapts to the ambient volume. At the same time, especially medium and high frequencies should be filtered out better.
Although Sennheiser still cannot quite compete with the ANC of the top dog Sony, it is noticeably getting closer to the rival. A WH1000-XM4 or XM5 filters out voices and high tones in particular a good deal better, but the Momentum Wireless 4 is close and creates a wonderfully quiet, isolated atmosphere.
It’s also commendable that ANC has no effect on the sound and that the background noise turns out very quiet, almost inaudible. The transparency mode, on the other hand, which amplifies environmental noise to allow conversations with headphones on, for example, is good, but can’t quite keep up with the ANC quality.
Microphone quality
- Very good microphone quality
When it comes to the microphones, Sennheiser installs two MEMS microphones on each side, which are supposed to cover a frequency response of 50 Hz to 10,000 Hz and effectively block out background noise. In fact, the headphones do a good job during phone calls as well, ensuring clear intelligibility from us to our counterpart and vice versa.
App connectivity: Sennheiser Smart Control
- Clearly structured app
- Many setting options
- Some features with registration constraint
The companion app for the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 is Smart Control, which you can download for free on iOS and Android. Somewhat annoyingly, however, some of the most interesting features, such as customizing the sound (called Sound Check), as well as creating sound zones including custom profiles, are hidden behind a registration constraint. A Sennheiser account is mandatory here, otherwise it works without registration.
In addition, the app sometimes does not recognize the headphones even though they are connected and displayed in the Bluetooth settings. Otherwise, the app is nicely laid out and offers the most important functions – although the fine-tuning of the sound is only done via a simple three-band equalizer.
For this, you can, for example, set the volume of your own voice during phone calls via Sidetone, maximize or turn off the reduction of wind noise, as well as the option to turn the wear detection on and off. All in all, though, there are no features that I would particularly miss. But the fact that the headphones are not recognized every third or fourth start is a bit annoying in the long run.
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 Test: Conclusion
Purely in terms of sound, as well as in terms of wearing comfort, ANC and especially battery life, the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 leaves its direct predecessor, but also a large part of the competition behind. And it does so by a considerable margin.
However, Sennheiser has made its latest headphones more suitable for the masses in terms of the sound mix, but especially the design, and has moved away from what once made the manufacturer’s headphones so special.
This circumstance does not weigh too heavily in my eyes, though, because I find the design quite good – even though it no longer offers any real recognition value and is also extremely susceptible to fingerprints and sweat.
However, no other headphone comes close to the 60 hours of battery life, and the Momentum Wireless 4 can also almost completely convince in terms of sound. At least once you have adjusted the basic sound. The headphones definitely live up to the high price and easily position themselves among the best ANC headphones you can currently buy.
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4
Workmanship
Comfort
Sound quality
Noise Cancelling
Features
Value for money
92/100
Despite omitting the stylish design, the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 marks an excellent headphone with top-notch sound, impressive battery life, and very good ANC.
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