The Sennheiser Momentum 4 wireless headphones. Picture: Noel Campion.

The Sennheiser Momentum 3 Bluetooth headphones were released at the end of 2019 and featured a stylish and distinctive design language that made them stand out from the plethora of samey headphones. This time out, Sennheiser has gone for a more understated design with their new Momentum 4, intentionally going for function over form, performance over style and we like it.

The Momentum 4 is closer in design to a more traditional headphone with a plushness that is as comfortable as it looks. The headband has a fabric material on the outer surface and a soft cushioning material on the inside with a dip in the middle that Sennheiser says ensures it fits the shape of your skull for greater comfort.

The earcups can rotate a full 180 degrees, however, unlike the previous iteration they can’t fold inwards to make them more compact. I do like that you can wear them around your neck with either the cups facing forwards or backwards.

The earcups cushions are super-soft but I would have preferred if they were a little deeper or just a tad bigger as I found my ears would touch the inside. That said, they feel nicely balanced and extremely comfortable to wear.

On the right earcup is a single multi-function button, a 2.5mm headphone jack, a USB-C port for charging and five small LEDs that indicate battery level. There are no buttons or ports on the left earcup while the right earcup features a large capacity touch area for gesture controls. I’m generally not a fan of touch-only controls and would have a preference for some dials or buttons. I found I had to carefully hold the outside of the earcups to ensure I didn’t have any accidental touches when handling them.

The case matches the fabric found on the outside of the headband with just a white Sennheiser logo screen printed on the lid. The rounded triangular-shaped case is slightly wedged towards the top and feels very robust. The inside has fixed places to strap the included 2.5mm to 3.5mm cable, airline adaptor and USB-C to USB-A charging cable. There’s also a mesh pocket for additional storage.

The free Smart Control is the same app Sennheiser uses with many of their other headphones. This is where you go to adjust things like the active noise cancellation, sidetone, EQ and connection management.

The Momentum 4 can be simultaneously connected to two devices at a time and the connection management feature allows you to change which two devices you want to connect. You can also remove a device from here. Being connected to a laptop and a phone is the most typical use for this feature and it’s so convenient.

Additionally, you may alter the sound using specific EQ sliders for the bass, midrange, and treble and store any customisation you prefer as a preset. Also, their pre-tuned bass boost and podcast sound modes are there if you need them.

The 3-band EQ is great to have but a little limited. Sennheiser has said they are working on expanding this in a future update to a 5-band or more EQ.

You can adjust ANC and Ambient sound strength with a slider — all the way to the left is 100% ANC and all the way to the right is full Ambient mode. You can also toggle the Adaptive ANC function on or off. When on, it will automatically adjust ANC based on the environmental sounds.

There’s also a wind noise reduction feature that can be set to off, auto or max. I set it to auto and while it is effective, it does turn off ANC and enable ambient mode. You can also configure the headphones to pause automatically when ambient sound mode is activated.

The Sidetone feature works to enhance your own voice during calls. It has a slider that can be set between 0% and 100%. Sidetone performs significantly better than transparency mode alone in improving call quality.

While you can choose from a list of EQ presets or adjust the bass, mids and treble individually and save your own custom preset you can also use Sound Check which walks you through a series of audio multiple choice questions to create a personalised sound profile. In theory, this should be the perfect EQ for you based on your sound preferences. You can create multiple Sound Checks with different tracks to create presets to suit various genres of music.

Also, to use this as well as the Zones feature which can change your sound profiles based on your phone's location, you’ll need to create a free Sennheiser account.

The Momentum 4 supports Bluetooth 5.2 along with the widely compatible SBC and AAC audio codecs. They also support the most recent aptX Adaptive format, which offers improved audio quality and reduced latency but it doesn’t support LDAC which offers the highest audio bit rates.

The only button on the Momentum 4 has several functions. You can turn them on and off as well with a press and hold for three seconds or double tap to hear a voice announce the current battery percentage. Press and hold for five seconds to put them into Bluetooth pairing mode. You can also set the headphones to turn off automatically if you want via the app — 15, 30, or 60 minutes.

You get full playback controls via touch and I like the volume control which behaves like a virtual slider — press, hold and slide up or down to change the volume.

You can also alternate between ANC and transparency mode with a double tap. Although I’m not the biggest fan of touch controls, Sennheiser has done an excellent job of making the gestures as responsive and intuitive as possible. In particular, I really love the new pinch gesture which is used to adjust the amount of noise cancellation and ambient sound. Pinching will increase the ANC while doing the opposite will transition to ambient sound mode. You get two levels of ANC and two levels of ambient sound strength.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to customise the controls or even turn them off completely.

Sound quality and ANC performance

I recently reviewed the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds and was impressed with the sound quality, so I wasn’t surprised to find the Momentum 4s excel in this department too.

One of the first things I noticed was the deep bass that digs deep and even has a decent amount of sub-bass. At first, I turned it down a little in the EQ but soon brought it right back because I started to appreciate the extra punch.

The soundstage is wide and well-balanced with good imaging and instrument separation. The highs are crisp and clear without getting tiring during long sessions. I really enjoyed them for acoustic tracks with strong vocals where the imaging was spot on.

What’s even better is that you can also use the Momentum 4 wired. I tested it using a Chord Mojo 2 headphone amp/DAC and they sound even better.

ANC performance is top-notch and very close to the best on offer from the others I’ve tested including Sony, Bose and Apple. Sidetone and ambient sound make them excellent for calls. However, the noise reduction only seems to work when you’re talking — stop and your caller will hear all the noise in the background. Also, I found the quality of my voice deteriorated when the background noise reduction was at its strongest. This is something that should improve with future updates. That all being said, callers said my voice sounded great.

The Momentum 4 offers an incredible 60 hours of battery life and that’s with ANC enabled, so you can expect even longer with ANC off. Of course, with volumes over 50% you can expect less but that’s the same for every other headphone.

The Momentum 4 is one of the best wireless headphones you can buy right now. The sound quality is exceptional for Bluetooth cans and they’re so comfortable to wear. ANC and ambient sound are right up there with the best and the battery performance is class-leading. The multipoint connectivity is hard to live without once you get used to it and the app is good but could do with improvements including at least a 5-band EQ and the ability to customise the controls. Overall though, the Momentum 4 is easy to recommend, particularly if sound quality, comfort and battery life are at the top of your list of priorities.

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