The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 are Sennheiser’s latest flagship true wi-fi earbuds. These function all of the bells and whistles, together with adaptive noise cancellation, Bluetooth 5.4 with aptX Lossless, LE Audio, Auracast, Sennheiser’s distinctive Sound Personalization function, and wi-fi charging. At $300, they price a reasonably penny. But are they price it? Let’s discover out.
Design and luxury
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 have primarily the identical design as their predecessors, simply in a unique shade of shade. The charging case is fabric-lined as earlier than, with the foolish USB port on the entrance that all the time confuses since each different pair of earbuds has it on the again of the case.
However, that is not the least of its worries and is one thing you may get used to. What I could not get used to are the scale of the case because the chunky form merely is not very pocketable. The selection of lining the outside of one thing that’s all the time dealt with or in your pockets with cloth can be questionable and the grey lining of our silver mannequin had already began to stain in my couple of weeks of use.
Aside from that, the case is constructed very effectively with a really sturdy lid design that has not one of the play you discover on different fashions and closes with a satisfying snap. The cloth lining, as impractical as it could be, additionally has a premium texture that’s pleasing to the contact.
Moving on to the earbuds themselves, they’ve beneficiant proportions that stick out a bit out of your ears. There is a large portion on the again that’s touch-sensitive however as soon as once more there are downsides to this design. The contact space is just too massive so it is practically unimaginable to place the earbuds on or off and never set off one of many gestures.
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 earbuds have a substantial insertion depth. They sit pretty deep in your ear canal, which might not be comfy for lots of people. There can be appreciable suction going out and in and as a rule, pulling the earbuds out causes the ear tricks to flip inside out as they detach out of your ear canal.
Due to this, consolation wasn’t a robust swimsuit for these earbuds. The factor is, I used to be in a position to put on them for lengthy intervals however inserting them and taking them out all the time precipitated a boring ache that I rapidly grew uninterested in.
Another situation is with the contact gestures, which require you to faucet on the outer floor. Considering how deep the earbuds sit in your ear canal, every faucet appears like an assault in your eardrums and is all the time uncomfortable.
Overall, I used to be upset within the design of the MOMENTUM True Wireless 4. It appears like not a number of thought went into the human ingredient of designing one thing meant for use by people. A case that’s tough to hold in your pockets, opens the flawed approach and will get visibly soiled as you utilize it. Earbuds which can be uncomfortable to get out and in of your ears, have sensors that go off unintentionally and harm when used deliberately. This just isn’t the way you design wearable gadgets and everybody concerned wants an intervention.
Software
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 work with Sennheiser’s Smart Control app accessible on Android and iOS. Through the app you possibly can modify the sound, ANC, contact gestures, and improve the firmware.
For sound customization, the MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 supply Sennheiser’s Sound Personalization function. This is an attention-grabbing function that performs check tones with totally different devices and allows you to prioritize one over the opposite. In the tip, it creates a sound profile primarily based on the sounds you want to listen to essentially the most. For individuals who do not perceive equalizers, that is a straightforward and efficient strategy to modify the sound to their liking.
Audio settings
However, should you do perceive and like equalizers, then you possibly can simply bounce into the five-band EQ that is additionally accessible together with a number of presets in addition to separate Bass Boost and Podcast modes. Thankfully, there is not a change within the general sound amplitude when enabling the EQ as seen on another merchandise.
You can even modify the ANC via the app. “Adjust” right here principally means enabling or disabling the ANC because the MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 have adaptive ANC, which routinely adjusts its ranges primarily based on the ambient sound. There can be an Anti-Wind mode, which reduces the extent of ANC however utterly removes the buffeting sound in windy environments.
You can even allow or disable the transparency mode right here and also you do get adjustable ranges for it. You can even have it turned on throughout voice calls (or primarily any time the microphone is on) with an adjustable stage. Enabling transparency mode can even optionally pause your music after which resume when it is disabled.
Unlike most different ANC earbuds nowadays, the MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 don’t allow transparency mode in a single ear once you take away the opposite earbud. This has confirmed to be a helpful and considerate function and one thing Sennheiser needs to be implementing as it isn’t precisely rocket science.
Other settings
Next, we come to the contact gestures. The app gives a number of choices to customise gestures and you too can disable them completely. I selected to disable the only faucet gestures as a result of it was far too straightforward to set off them merely whereas inserting and eradicating the earbuds. You can even disable contact gestures completely should you like.
The app has just a few different options, together with letting you select the codec (aptX, aptX adaptive, or aptX Lossless), sensible pause, auto energy off, and extra. One good function is Battery Protection Mode, which reduces charging velocity for the earbuds when contained in the case and avoids charging to 100%, which finally reduces put on and tear on the batteries and extends their life.
Speaking of the Sennheiser app itself, it’s beginning to attain Sony Headphones Connect ranges of bloatedness. The app is gradual to launch and takes some time to load all its options. It additionally always closes within the background on some gadgets even should you pin it to reminiscence and initiates each time you launch it.
More annoyingly, the aforementioned Sound Personalization function is locked behind a compulsory Sennheiser account. This was mentioned in our earlier Sennheiser review and simply appears like an inexpensive tactic to collect consumer knowledge as there isn’t any technical cause to make an account to make use of the function. Do higher, Sennheiser.
Performance
Audio high quality
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 function single 7mm dynamic drivers. They help a wide range of codecs over Bluetooth 5.4, together with SBC, AAC, LC3, aptX, aptX Adaptive, and at last, aptX Lossless. Regarding that final one, whereas it might have been the best candidate to check audio high quality and connectivity efficiency, I merely didn’t have entry to any gadget that supported this codec. At current, it is solely accessible on a handful of gadgets from a fair smaller pool of manufacturers. Until that state of affairs adjustments, you would be doing what I did, which is to make use of aptX Adaptive.
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 have a heat and darkish tonality. The tuning prioritizes a extra laidback, relaxed sound over an lively, detailed one.
The bass is noticeably ahead with extra mid and higher bass power. It’s not particularly sturdy or deep and goes extra for a mellow thump over an aggressive slam and rumble. The Weeknd’s ‘Gasoline’ bassline had a tepid assault as an alternative of an in-your-face punch. There’s sufficient power right here to maintain you engaged with out fatiguing you over time.
The mid-range is not a lot to jot down house about. The decrease mids carry over among the heat from the low finish and may really feel a bit heavy and bloated on some male vocals. At the identical time, the higher mids are missing in power, which carries over into the decrease treble ranges. The violin in Ludovico Einaudi’s ‘Experience’ feels lifeless and the breathy vocals of Toaka in Suzume’s title observe lack the airiness that you simply anticipate.
Sennheiser’s tuning appears extra according to extra standard genres of pop, hip-hop, and digital music. The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 can carry these genres fairly effectively, belting out a balanced, fulfilling sound that leans into their typical tuning. But the second you flip to classical or instrumental music, the sound feels congested and heavy and makes you attain for the EQ. Fortunately, it isn’t exhausting to tune the sound to your liking via the app.
Microphone
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 had surprisingly poor microphone efficiency. Voices sounded muffled and quiet to a shocking diploma and this was regardless of resetting them a number of occasions and testing the microphone on every earbud individually. Callers typically had a tough time understanding something that was spoken and I typically simply needed to resort to shouting to be heard.
On the plus aspect, there was first rate isolation of background noise however with your individual voice being so muffled, that’s hardly a comfort.
Noise cancellation
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 have superb noise isolation efficiency. The earbuds block a good bit of noise passively contemplating how deep they sit in your ear canal. Once the ANC kicks in, you get close to complete silence in most situations.
The ANC on these earbuds is dynamic so they’re always adjusting to your environment. When you first put them on, they take just a few seconds to calibrate so initially the ANC won’t appear all that spectacular however after some time it will get to the place it must be.
The transparency mode additionally works effectively and it is good that it gives you a completely adjustable stage of management over how a lot sound you need in. It’s only a disgrace it does not set off within the different ear once you pull out one earbud.
One minor and considerably odd situation with ANC is that if the earbuds restart for no matter cause, the ANC doesn’t kick in routinely. For instance, should you swap the codecs via the app, the earbuds have to restart. Once restarted, the ANC doesn’t activate by itself and it is advisable take away the earbuds and put them again in for the ANC to work.
Latency
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 have satisfactory latency efficiency. By default, it isn’t good and also you would not be capable of play video games. You want to enter the app and swap to the low latency mode. This causes the earbuds to restart (and set off the aforementioned ANC situation).
Once on this mode, some apps had good latency efficiency however others didn’t. It wasn’t clear why this was situational and relying on what video games you might be enjoying, you might or might not get good latency efficiency. Either approach, the latency efficiency appears a little bit of an afterthought with these earbuds and Sennheiser does not even declare a latency quantity in its advertising and marketing.
Connectivity
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 has good connectivity efficiency. In my testing, there have been no audio dropouts or random disconnections and the whole lot labored effectively. I could not check the aptX Lossless mode, which might have doubtlessly introduced points resulting from its excessive bandwidth requirement however alas, there weren’t any suitable gadgets to check with. Hell, many Android gadgets do not even help aptX Adaptive and that has been round for ages.
With aptX Adaptive, the Sennheiser app claims to work at 24-bit/96kHz. However, on all gadgets I checked, the earbuds would work at 24-bit/48kHz by default when utilizing aptX Adaptive. 96kHz might be enabled via developer settings however resets again to 48kHz when the earbuds are restarted.
The earbuds help multipoint connectivity and you’ll handle all paired and energetic gadgets via the app.
Battery Life
Sennheiser claims 7 hours of audio playback with ANC enabled. However, that is with AAC and we have a tendency to check with the perfect codec accessible so I did all my testing with the perfect codec I might use, which was aptX Adaptive in 24-bit/48kHz mode.
In this mode, the MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 performed for six hours and 47 minutes repeatedly on a full cost, which is fairly near the claimed AAC determine. I additionally examined after a fast ten-minute cost and the earbuds performed for simply over one hour repeatedly.
At round 7 hours, the battery life for music is superb and needs to be sufficient for many customers.
Conclusion
The MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 are Sennheiser’s flagship pair of true wi-fi earbuds and that title carries with it some expectations. The earbuds impress with their noise-cancellation efficiency, which is their strongest swimsuit. The audio tuning might not be appropriate for all music however works effectively for standard genres so most individuals needs to be proud of it. Not to say the Sennheiser app makes it straightforward to customise it to your liking. Well, at the very least after you make a compulsory account and check in. The battery life can be superb as is the final construct high quality.
(*4*)
Unfortunately, Sennheiser dropped the ball a bit with the microphone efficiency, which was unusually unhealthy on our unit. The latency efficiency was additionally nothing to jot down house about.
However, a lot of the shortcomings relate to the design, with each the case and the earbuds having some obvious points. Hopefully, they get resolved within the subsequent technology mannequin as a few of them genuinely get in the way in which of utilizing the product. If they handle that then will probably be one thing price wanting ahead to.