Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 review

True wireless earbuds have come a long way over the last decade, and usually, one of the best offerings in any given year has always been from the Sennheiser MOMENTUM line. Now that 2024 is in full swing, it’s time to say hello to the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4. Do they live up to expectations?

Editor’s note: this is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.

What’s it like to use Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4?

Like their predecessors, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 are Sennheiser’s halo earbuds, designed to compete with the best of the active noise canceling (ANC) earbud market. They’re fashionable, with metallic accents and a shape resembling earrings more than earbuds.

Just like we found with the Sennheiser CX Plus True Wireless, the housing of the buds are large enough to stick out of your ears pretty far — even if they’re not all that heavy. Thankfully, Sennheiser ensured that you can securely fit them in your outer ear’s concha with three different sizes of concha fins. However, if you have small ears, you may find the buds too big to cram in there. It took some fiddling with the medium fin to ensure the buds were securely aimed down my ear canal.

The circular nozzles might not play nice with all ear shapes, but because the nozzle is a bit shallow, you won’t need to torque the earbuds deep into your ear canals. In that light, the silicone sleeves are more than adequate for making a seal with the outermost part of your ear canal, allowing for an easy fit should you get the right size tip. Be sure to run the fit test in the app once they’re in.

The Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 carries an ingress protection rating of IP54 — not enough to handle swimming, but perfectly adequate for workouts or the rain. Though we’d still recommend something better rated against moisture if you’re hoping to go for long runs or particularly intense workouts regularly, it is nice to know that your $300 earbuds offer some protection.

How do you control the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4?

The Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 are controlled using capacitive touch plates on the back of each earbud. We’re fans of this here at SoundGuys because touch panels are generally less prone to breaking the seal on your ear canal than buttons — thereby less prone to making your music sound worse. The inputs for the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 are relatively straightforward, and you can tweak these in the app should you desire.

Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 default controls:

Should you use the Sennheiser Smart Control app for the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4?

If you’re spending almost $300 on earbuds, actively avoiding the advanced features would be nonsensical, so you should use the Sennheiser Smart Control app. It’s one of the most useful software companions we’ve seen and has much to offer. For example, you can have the earbuds self-tune to your ears (with the creation of a Sennheiser account), you can use the 5-band equalizer to adjust your sound, set coordinates to geofence certain behaviors like how strong the ANC is, and update the firmware.

I particularly like the fit test, as many people are unaware of how important fit is  — especially with earbuds. Fit issues mean a poor seal, bad sound quality, and reduced ANC performance. Having an app to check your fit takes the guesswork out, and it’s a nice feature.

Though the data collection warning upon using the Sound Check feature can be a bit off-putting, it’s only needed because it requires outside help to process the data it gathers about your ear. There doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious going on.

How do the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 connect?

The Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 connect to the source devices using Bluetooth 5.4 with either SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, or — after a firmware update — LC3 and LE Audio. If you’re using an iPhone, you’ll be limited to the AAC (and SBC) codecs, but Apple’s implementation isn’t anything to scoff at. Android users are another story, as these phones can often use the full range of available codecs.

They can also connect to Auracast if available in your immediate surroundings and sport Multipoint for those with multiple devices.

If I had to pick a gripe with the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 here, it’s that you can’t use the charging case as a transmitter for those times when Bluetooth isn’t available from your source, but a wired connection is (like on an aircraft for example). We’ve only seen this a handful of times, but it is one of those features that helps out the rough edges with the true wireless earbud concept. As I said, this gripe only exists if I’m forced to choose one.

How long does the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 battery last?

In our standardized battery test, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 delivered 7 hours and 45 minutes of music playback, peaking at 75dB (a safe, typical listening level). This is beyond what most current true wireless earbuds manage, even if it isn’t setting any records. This means that you should have zero issues making it through your commute, and if you need to make it through an entire workday, you could probably get away with recharging these while you get a coffee in the morning and return to the desk with your earbuds ready to go.

In addition to the case’s wired charging, you can top it up by placing it on any Qi-compatible wireless charger. This is good for those times when you don’t want to futz with a ton of cables. Just setting it down in its place will top up the battery. Though wireless charging is wasteful, it does help preserve the longevity of your product if you keep the battery level 20 to 85% charged.

On a related note, the Sennheiser Smart Control app has “Battery Protection Mode,” which will charge slower to preserve battery health and prevent a full charge. While that sounds a little counter-intuitive, it’s forcing good battery hygiene so that your earbuds will hopefully last far longer than they would with constant charge and discharge cycles in a manner known to degrade cells quickly.

How well do the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 cancel noise?

Sennheiser’s MOMENTUM True Wireless have always been its top-of-the-line earbuds, and ANC is one of those features demanded by almost everybody spending almost three bills on earbuds. The Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 did pretty well in our lab, posting 83% average noise attenuation. They require a good fit to perform their best, and I strongly recommend running the app’s fit test to ensure your experience aligns with our results.

Getting a good seal has pretty stark benefits for passive isolation, too. And in that regard, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 do very well, physically blocking almost 50dB in some ranges. While these are not the best noise canceling earbuds ever, they are definitely in the conversation when considering the rest of the package.

On the train, I found that while you could still hear loud, quick sounds, the earbuds do just about as well as any others in the high-end segment. Sennheiser headphones struggle a bit with incidental noise sometimes, but on the whole, the ANC is quite good. If you’re a frequent flyer, these earphones will be an excellent companion to you.

How do the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 sound?

Sennheiser is known for its sound quality, so the MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 have some pretty lofty expectations. But do they live up to the hype of the other three MOMENTUM True Wireless earbuds?

Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)

The chart below shows how the sound of the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 was assessed by the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics.

Though there isn’t a ton more exposition necessary here other than “these earbuds sound great,” it’s worth pointing out that the panel of virtual listeners MDAQS represents found the tuning and immersiveness of the earbuds to be stellar out of the box. These are mean opinion scores (MOS), so there’s always the remote possibility that you might disagree. However, for the population at large, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 will sound fantastic.

The high immesiveness score is especially good for gaming and movie content, as it allows you to accurately place sound sources in the mix. Keep in mind, though, that there’s always the risk that latency will make your gaming sessions a little less than ideal in first-person shooter games.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Can you use the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 for phone calls?

You can use the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 for phone calls, though the mic performance is well below what we’re used to for higher-tiered TWS earbuds. We found the speech quality highly variable, and environmental noise is not suppressed well or consistently.

Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4?

As $300 is a lot to shell out, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 has much to prove. But boy, do they do exactly that; these are outstanding earbuds. With LE Audio support, excellent audio quality, and a robust app, you’re getting a lot for your money here. The Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 go toe-to-toe with the other high-end earbud options in the mass market, but whether you want to buy these or not depends entirely on how much disposable cash you have on hand, and how much future-proofing means to you.

In that light, you can get away with something less expensive if you don’t need wireless charging, codecs not supported by your phone or lossless playback. This describes you if you’re primarily listening to Spotify on your iPhone. The Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 are for someone with the money for a top-end product, and the infrastructure (a brand-new Android phone, specifically) to listen to higher-bitrate tunes.

What should you get instead of the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4?

If you’re looking for alternatives to the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4, there are plenty of options at the upper end of the true wireless market. For example, there’s the Sony WF-1000XM5 ($298 at Amazon) that offer stellar ANC, good sound quality, and come in at the same price as the Sennheiser buds. Though they’re not as chic, the Sony earphones are high performers for about the same price. The main reason you’d pick Sennheiser over Sony is the future-proofing aspect if the benefits of Auracast would meaningfully impact your life.

Those with a little less cash to burn should probably look to the JLab Epic Lab Edition ($199.99 at Amazon) for their decent performance, great app, and lower price tag. Though these earbuds have slightly less in the future-proofing department, it’s much easier to justify their cost when considering that they’re not much of a step down regarding features.

Of course, if you’re looking for earbuds for an iPhone, it’s tough to get the level of platform integration offered by the Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation) ($239 at Amazon). With an iPhone, you cannot use the higher-bitrate codecs offered by the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4, so some of the advantages of these earphones come down to the app and fit. The less-expensive AirPods Pro becomes more compelling when you get to that point.

Frequently asked questions