While some fans lamented Sennheiser’s decision to retire the retro styling of the Momentum line with the fourth-gen model from 2022, most appreciated the clean sound, long battery life, and powerful ANC. Suffice to say, it remains one of the best wireless headphones in the market. Still, it’s been out for quite a while so it’s high time it got an update in the form of the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless.
That’s right, Sennheiser is bringing in their new competitor to the Sony WH-1000XM6 and it sounds better than ever. From lossless hi-res and spatial audio to improved ANC and a customizable sound, this thing improves on its predecessor across a number of fronts.
The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless retains the contemporary styling of the last generation, sporting large ear cups and a design that’s meant to blend in rather than stand out. It features similarly-sized 42mm drivers as the last generation, which have been tuned to deliver what the outfit describes as “clear sound, lifelike mids, and sharp details.” This time around, it’s adding AptX Lossless support for high-res audio, so the headphones can stream 16-bit/44.1kHz CD-quality tracks, complete with an Hi-Res Audio certification from the Japan Audio Society. Do note, this is only supported when streaming from devices that support the Snapdragon Sound platform, which means it won’t work with your Apple or Samsung devices, making it a bit of a disappointment.
It comes with twice the number of microphones for noise cancellation, too, with the headphones now sporting four mics on each side. According to the outfit, the ANC is now three times stronger in the midrange frequencies (e.g. voice chatter and airplane drone) compared to the last generation, ensuring it can shut out more of the sounds that will still make it through in their previous release. The noise cancellation is adaptive, by the way, so it’s smart enough to adjust on-the-fly based on your surroundings, complete with a transparency mode for those times you actually need to hear what’s around you. Those same mics, by the way, should help improve call quality on both ends, clearing out all ambient sounds so it can transmit your voice clearly.
The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless has a battery rated at 57 hours of playtime, so you will only need to plug it in every few days or so. While that’s three hours less than the Momentum 4, it’s still a big step up compared to other wireless headphones out there, most of which teeter around the 30-hour range. Even better, the battery is supposedly user-swappable, so you can easily replace it if anything every happens to the cells. If you like to play around with your headphone’s sound, they do offer an eight-band equalizer on the Smart Control Plus app, which lets you tweak and tune all sorts of details when it comes to what you’re hearing. It comes with presets, too, so you can just try out premade combinations if you don’t feel like fiddling with the sliders too much. Other features include spatial audio, Dolby Atmos with head tracking, a 20 percent smaller case, and a promised firmware update that will upgrade it to Bluetooth 6.0 with LE Audio.
The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless comes out June 30th, priced at $399.99.
