Musings: Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless Headphones

Ok, I said this wasn’t a hardware review site. It isn’t, but I did get a new set of wireless cans for listening around the house, Sennheiser’s new Momentum 4 headphones. They’re here, so I might as well write a little blurb on them, right?

Opening the box, one is greeted by a relatively non-descript gray, hard shelled carrying case. Inside rest the headphones, charging cable, a cable to convert into the Momentum 4's into hard-wired cans, and an adapter for airline travel. As with most wireless headphones, setup is pretty straightforward: press a button until the battery charge indicator starts flashing, and its ready to pair. Sennheiser also offers an app that boasts limited EQ functionality, along with controls for the noise cancelling system.

Personally, I was satisfied with the sound out of the box, so I didn’t really mess with the EQ settings too much. The noise cancelling system seems to work as advertised, and combined with the closed back design, the listener is pretty well isolated from the outside world. There is some noise leakage at high volumes, but at moderate levels you won’t be disturbing anyone.

Momentum 4's (left) compared with the originals.

So, how do the Momentum 4’s sound? Pretty good to my ear. The sound is well balanced, with a respectable amount of low end punch. Outside of a bit of extra warmth on the low end (compared with pair of EQ'ed Sennheiser HD560S headphones), I didn’t notice any significant frequency response aberrations after several weeks of listening. Thanks to a claimed 60 hour battery life, I haven’t had to recharge yet either. In terms of aesthetics, these are pretty plain cans, especially compared with previous iterations. Just as well, the originals looked pretty, but weren’t terribly comfortable; the headband was a bit too hard and the ear cups were too small. The Momentum 4's have none of those problems. They're able to fit on my ears (as well as the ears of my measurement rig) without a problem, and the headband is also well padded for improved comfort.

MSRP sits at $350 a pop, so these aren’t the cheapest cans on the block. Still, the value for the money is reasonable in my opinion, even if I wouldn’t call the Momentum 4’s a screaming bargain at that price. While they won’t replace my HD560S / JDS Atom rig for critical listening, these puppies don’t embarrass themselves at all. Four out of five stars.

Measurements

All measurements were taken on a MiniDSP EARS rig.

Frequency Response Left (Red) and Right (Green)

THD (White) versus response curve (Brown)