(NEW) Sennheiser Momentum 4 Adaptive Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones

5 stars to me. 4 stars all around for the average consumer due to issues I believe others will find a problem with but I have found some workarounds for I will start off with the flaws (unfortunately it has em) from my experience and some solutions. They are mostly features based. I'll also address confusions and "negative" experiences as there are reviews where clearly it's the people and not the headphones that are the problem yet they are giving this a worse impression that it should have. And lastly praise what it has going well for it Also, I will highly suggest downloading the new app version called smart control PLUS and install any firmware updates. Then go adjust settings or it will have some annoyances. Flaws On-head detection: this causes most of the headaches. For those that like to free up an ear to listen to someone talk better - make a habit of freeing your left ear and not the right. There is a sensor to detect your ear and it is only INSIDE the right earcup. It makes a double click noise when it detects and stops detecting your ear. Unfortunately it makes a similar sound for both which is a huge flaw as you might not know if it is detecting or not sometimes. This will trigger the auto off feature if it doesn't detect you while you're listening to music. It usually pauses from the headset, but there is a possibility it can be ignored by an app and continue playing so when you put it back on you might not even know if it detected you. Another possibility is you made the mistake of pressing play from the app itself when it stops detecting you thus eventually triggering the sleep feature. You can disable auto off but I personally put it in 1 hour just in case as I would have likely readjusted my headset by that point and reset it. This goes into the next feature: auto play. It's perfectly fine on mobile but on PC it can be a nightmare as you could be listening to music, you adjust your right earcup so it pauses and when you put it back on, it might play some other video like youtube in an open browser; it depends on the programs that behave to bluetooth pause/play. So don't have so many open video/audio programs in the background. Also for those with long hair, autoplay can struggle to detect if it completely covers your right ear (some people start to think it stopped working). Overall, I just disabled autoplay while keeping auto-off enabled as I mainly use the M4 on PC, but again, it seems to work really well on mobile. Plus of course if any of these aren't necessary to you, you can simply disable it as a whole for an old fashioned headphone experience to avoid annoyances but I have gotten used to it at this point that I rarely have issues [Update: I just learned on May 2025 that as of the new firmware 2.13.42 it reads "Improved auto-off behavior reducing unexpected behavior during calls or streaming due to misdetection in smart pause sensor", so perhaps this section might become untrue with less flaws down the road thus hopefully improving user experience] Multi- point connection: It can and will connect to two devices that have bluetooth active after they have been paired. There are individuals that pair their headphones to everything and might experience a random connection. Unfortunately no disabling this so you have to be precise with what you want to connect this with. I only paired this to PC and mobile so it doesn't attempt to connect to anything else but in the app you can click to what else in the list want to connect to (or delete). When it detects multiple signals it will prioritize connecting to what you last used, it seems. Not an issue for me. Also, it will ALWAYS prioritize audio for the first connection of the two which will usually be the phone. This is important. If it connects to my phone first, well lets say Im on the PC listening to music, once your phone makes any kind of sound, your audio will switch to it and interrupt the music, then resume playing your PC's music. Because of this, disable useless sounds like the lock screen opening sounds because that will trigger a switch (not sure about typing sounds). I have sound on for notifications to get my attention for the phone but if that is an annoyance I would try connecting other devices (like PC) as your main device first and then phone second. That way, it will ONLY play audio on the main device (PC) in spite of your phone making noises or playing audio. I tend to disable phone bluetooth, so it isn't an issue for me what connects first anyways. Now, this is a major flaw which may have been addressed in the new firmware update and app but I have not fully tested yet so this is based on months old experience. Last flaw with this. Do not have constant audio playing on -BOTH- devices because it will cause some static to what you are listening to. No idea why this happens but sometimes the music sounds glitchy and I realize it's because my PC is playing music alongside my phone. All it takes is not having something like music playing on the second device and it gets clean. Reboot: it can be done on the power button after holding for over 15 seconds. Be careful NOT to do this if it is not your intention. I have a friend who accidentally did this High resolution: app is glitched if you try to do personalized sound after enabling high resolution. It will ask you to disable high resolution before proceeding. All you have to do is go to standard mode, make your sound profile, then go back and enable High Resolution. Confusions: ANC: some people complain you can't turn off ANC. You sort of can. Old app, on the ANC slide, you put the slider in the middle. Most importantly, the new version of the app now allows to turn off ANC and might possibly increase your battery life. Oh, and some people remark of ANC randomly activating when outside. That is the wind noise reduction activating during air blowing directly to your mics. You can turn it off in ANC settings (you can also adjust transparency during phone calls there) but trust me that you don't want to hear wind transmitted into a headset Auto-answer calls: complaints on this but another reason you need the app to disable it if you don't want it. Aut-connect: some complain that if it moves it will auto connect or cause confusion when they don't know why their bluetooth loud speakers stopped working until they realize the headphones are connected. I personally love auto connect and has never been an issue. I put my headphones away where it won't move at all and once I grab it, boom, just straightforward and smooth connection grab and go. This is a feature of auto off so if you don't want it to be doing this you can either disable auto off (more like sleep) or turn off the headphones directly from the power button (which means you will also have to turn it back on with the button). I don't think of it as a flaw to be honest Discord/meeting calls: This is a big one. There are people mentioning how when they get on discord, their music and game sounds muffled. That is its hands free activating because it believes you are in a call. It prioritizes the call once it is activating its mic. You may have noticed it on your phone before too with music getting muffled. Problem is these then get compared directly to a gaming headset. Most gaming headsets have a usb dongle. Those dongles are designed to give both high quality low latency audio and mic signals at the same time. These? They are bluetooth headsets not specifically designed for gaming but rather for high quality audio. This is not a major fault of the headset. There exists a workaround for this but you will have to disable handsfree and rely on a different mic (which can be a far superior option anyways). To do this - on windows 11, go to settings. Click "bluetooth & devices". Then click on "view more devices" up top to go to a drop down list of devices. Scroll all the way down until you find "more devices and printer settings". Find the M4 headset, right click and go to properties. Click on the hardware tab. On this list, look for Name "Momentum 4 Hands-Free" that is under Type "Sound, Video...". Click once on it then click on properties below. In properties, General tab, click on the blue and yellow shield that says Change Settings. Then go to the Driver tab and Click Disable Driver. Reboot PC. Can be undone in similar method. At this point it has no headset mic active ~specifically~ on the PC (phone should be unaffected) so audio will be clear but now an external mic will be needed. Experiences: Connectivity: people say they have connectivity issues but thankfully it is very rare for me. It has a good distance to it too. I keep up to date with everything on my phone Touchpad: some say it is very sensitive. It is certainly more sensitive than usual but there are exaggerations to it. My hair does not trigger it. Turning my head does not trigger it. I don't trigger it with a hoodie on. I don't wear beanies over it (why would you?) so I cant say anything there. Stretching my arms above my head might trigger and laying my head on the right side might make it think you want to change volume or transparency. But some of these reviews are funny. They are not rated to be water resistant at all (like most headsets) so if rain drops trigger it, actually no, WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE IT IN THE RAIN? App: the app is fine minus the glitch [refer to High Resolution in Flaws] and has only been improving bit by bit. There's now also a new version which requires a new download that will likely be getting more of a focus on Durability: it is plastic which makes it lighter but thankfully I have not broken anything. I have bumped it into things, dropped it once. I try to treat is as glass so these are rare occurrences. I would not work out in these due to the fact they are not designed to deal with liquid. If problems occur because you work out in these, well that's your fault, but there exist rubber sweat covers to put over the padding to help out a bit. The Sennheisers Momentum 4/Sport earbuds I believe have water resistance and might be worth a look instead if you need a true gym companion Strengths Audio quality: right out of the box, they are great. It has a neutral sound profile while having some attention to bass. There are presets in the app that are decent and it really does not need a bass booster but it exists. To be honest, I would skip everything and go straight for the sound personalization feature in the app. It's very simple to adjust, uses mostly sliders while you listen to audio. And once you are done it will create a setting that somehow manages to be far superior than what's already available in the app. It just cleans up the sound so much more to your liking; the difference is bewildering. Ever since that point, I have not listened to music the same. Just when I thought I was getting bored of music, these revived that love to want to listen to everything again and also motivated me to listen to things I never did before. There is literally pre-Sennheiser and during-Sennheiser eras to me now and am curious to their wired headsets. One thing that will become super noticeable is its soundstage. It spreads the instruments to a degree where you can notice more of everything. Albeit, this can be discombobulating and bassheads might not like the lack of sharp precision but this isn't meant to be your average linear listening experience (the Accentum Plus offers this at a much lower price). To give an example: What is Life by George Harrison. I might prefer it on the more linear style I am used to but these can separate things to the point where it is also directional and you can feel like you are standing at a concert and George is directly in the middle of it all in front of you so it feels more real- similar to as if you are becoming conscious of your own breathing. And in midst of all the chaos, you can still clearly hear George's voice and you notice ALL of the instruments more. It first gave me goosebumps how much it changed the song. Some songs are designed to be "linear" which could possibly affect emotional type of songs negatively but from a musical perspective, my goodness it is incredible. Now I just go back to see what music I am used to that changes with these (hint: a lot). Electronic/hip-hop music perhaps is the exception but this gives such clarity to detail that it is still a great listen- one thing is for sure these headsets love when there is a band setup (Bjork, the Roots, Gorillaz, etc). Sound quality is the biggest reason you go for these. Comfort: I can go on for a while without my ears hurting or anything. Also these don't heat up much and has proper adjustability for bigger heads Look: I have the black with copper ring and they are absolutely gorgeous. I question the longevity of the cloth on the headstrap but it makes it more beautiful than it has any business being for a plastic headset Features: ANC is better than I expected. It does its job, and though it might not lead in this category, the differences are so small compared to the competition. Also drowned out what I needed it to during plane trips. And hearthrough, although I have had better, they will more than suffice to the point where I rarely have any issues hearing people. The fact that it is good at both of these is amazing for value. Battery: they can go up to nearly 60 hours, especially in standard mode. Not an exaggeration. I can go days without charging them. For this quality of headset, I don't think much of the competition comes close to this. In fact this is the mind blowing part because most other bluetooth headsets don't sound anywhere as good as these and they have half the battery life if not worse. No fears when travelling that it will die on me. In fact, it lasted me an entire week's trip Surprises Gaming: it has low enough latency. Combine that with that very clean audio and surprising directional audio this already has and wow, it performs quite well. I can actually spot details better and sometimes extra details I wasn't aware like I remember distinctly many months ago when I played Paladins, not only was I able to hear behind a wall slightly above me, but I realized it was subtle high heel sounds. I am not saying this will replace top of the line gaming headsets like steel series but if you have these and not a gaming headset, these will more than suffice. Charging: I was already enamored by the battery life but the fact is, it handles charging nearly as well. You can get hours worth per 10 minutes of charging and around an hour and a half or so it will be fully charged. That may not sound great but half of that will net you 30 hours of life which is STILL more than the competition. And the other surprise was that I accidentally discovered on the PC that you can still use it while charging - it simply appears as a different sound output you have to switch to. I thought it was weird how multiple momentum 4's appeared but when I clicked the other output, music started booming through it again. I was shocked. It already has a super long battery life with quick charging. It doesn't need it yet it has it. I have never had a headset that allows that with USB-C. Sennheiser were practically showing off at this point. So I would get a super long cable to make this comfortable during charging if you think this is a feature you will be using These are already the greatest -bluetooth- headsets I have ever owned under the $500 mark. I have tried out direct competitors Airpods Max (best hearthrough and good clean quality) and Sony Xm5's (amazing features and stylish) but the M4 felt like a no brainer. The max have poor battery life (under 20 hours) meanwhile these can reach close to triple that. The XM5's are light and so smooth with their features and touchpad (I loved speak to chat) but their fragility comes into question as they are notorious for the hinges breaking no matter how good you take care of them while the M4's mostly have earpads wearing down (easily replaceable). Meanwhile, guess what? The M4's imo sound better than both of them, are more comfortable than both, and can be found MUCH cheaper than both as I have seen it as low as $190. Even if, say, the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 might have slightly better audio and a better build, it's not a major difference so it is imo horrifically overpriced while this just has much higher value after sales and is an easier recommendation Overall, it absolutely bothers me just how overrated the other headsets on Amazon usually are meanwhile these get a bad impression. If you are a fan of music and you want to improve that experience with the bluetooth format at great affordability, it doesn't get better than these