Sennheiser Momentum 5 review: Great sound, incredible battery life, and few compromises

There are a batch of $300-$400 headphones connected the marketplace close now, and astir of them blur together. I spent the past fewer weeks with the Sennheiser Momentum 5 to find if this brace really stands out, investigating everything from dependable prime and sound cancellation to comfortableness and artillery life. 

At $399.99, the Momentum 5 beryllium close successful the mediate of the premium headphone market. That puts them up against the pricier Sony WH-1000XM6 and Apple AirPods Max 2, portion offering a much affordable enactment for anyone looking for high-end headphones.

Starting with sound, vocals dependable earthy and the bass is beardown without taking over. The headphones let you to commencement noticing small things successful music, similar a inheritance harmony oregon a guitar drawstring that cheaper headphones often thin to miss. If I had to picture the dependable successful 1 word, it’d beryllium balanced.  

The headphones enactment Dolby Atmos, which fundamentally means that euphony oregon movies dependable similar they’re coming from each astir you alternatively of conscionable near and right. 

Image Credits:Sennheiser /

With this generation, Sennheiser doubled the microphone number to 8 to amended the progressive sound cancellation (ANC). Voices and adjacent chatter, which are usually the benignant of sounds that tin chopped done weaker ANC, are noticeably quieter. Sennheiser claims this brace is up to 3 times much effectual than the erstwhile procreation astatine blocking this benignant of noise.

Of course, it’s not rather astatine the level of blocking retired everything similar a plane’s engine, but it does the occupation efficaciously without making your ears consciousness weirdly pressurized arsenic tin beryllium the lawsuit with immoderate ANC headphones. 

As for comfort, the headphones aren’t arsenic premium-feeling arsenic Apple oregon Sony headphones that I’ve tried successful the past, but fixed that the Momentum 5 outgo little than its competitors, it’s a trade-off that’s hard to kick about. 

The artillery beingness is genuinely impressive. It’s rated for up to 57 hours, and that fig held up successful my testing. For context, that’s astir doubly the artillery beingness of the Sony WH-1000XM6 and astir 3 times that of the AirPods Max 2. 

And erstwhile the artillery does tally out, a 10-minute complaint gets you up to 7 hours of playback, portion a afloat complaint takes astir 2 hours. 

Image Credits:Sennheiser /

A notable quality that the Momentum 5 offers that its competitors don’t is simply a user-replaceable cell, which means you tin swap retired the artillery erstwhile it degrades alternatively of having to bargain a full caller pair.

What I wasn’t expecting, but recovered amazingly useful, was however bladed the carrying lawsuit is. I’ve ne'er truly been capable to acceptable a brace of headphones into my medium-sized purses, but the Momentum 5 acceptable perfectly. It’s besides a large positive erstwhile traveling, since the lawsuit doesn’t instrumentality up overmuch abstraction successful your luggage.

With the headphones’ companion app, Smart Control Plus, you tin set a clump of antithetic settings. There’s an 8-band EQ that lets you tune the dependable yourself oregon take from 1 of Sennheiser’s presets. The app besides lets you set the level of ANC alternatively than conscionable switching it connected oregon off, and there’s an anti-wind mode you tin entree determination too. The “Sound Personalization” diagnostic walks you done a listening trial and creates a dependable illustration tailored to your proceeding preferences. 

The app gives you a decent magnitude of power implicit the Momentum 5, and I recovered it beauteous casual to navigate arsenic astir of the settings are rather straightforward. 

Overall, the Sennheiser Momentum 5 is simply a coagulated enactment astatine this price. They connection large sound, the artillery beingness is excellent, and the downsides are beauteous minor. They’re heavier than the Sony WH-1000XM6, and aren’t arsenic comfy arsenic immoderate Sony oregon Apple options, but astatine $399.99, they’re cheaper than some portion inactive delivering wherever it matters.