Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless Headphones Review

These are like middle-of-the-road quality. Sony is clearly better. Chose these hoping to get the depth of sound that Sennheiser is known for. Sadly their Bluetooth is just absolute garbage. It cannot and will not connect to anything. If you are lucky and manage to figure out the trash app you may get a phone connection maybe 20% of the time but good luck adjusting volume or connecting to anything else. Want to have a phone call/zoom in a loud space and need noise canceling or at a bare minimum high-quality sound so you can understand someone? Too bad. When used as a communication device the headset switches to this garbage "hands-free" version where noise canceling shut off and the sound quality is basically someone mumbling in a tin can. My Sont earbuds effortlessly switch between phone, laptop, and desktop. I never have to spend 20 minutes tinkering with it. Sony also makes calling and Zoom meetings a breeze. Do yourself a favor: drop the ideality of having "better sound quality" and just go with Sony. the 5% better sound quality for music means nothing if your headphones are too stupid to connect to your music device anyway.

I purchased these after buying a bunch of other Bluetooth headphones. For the price and sound quality and good ANC the BEST. The new firmware has 6 band EQ. These are clear and accurate with some punch bass. I would recommend these if like the sound of the focal bathys but don't want to spend 800 dollars.

I had hopes for this one. Sounds great. ANC worked pretty well. The sound dampening from the outside world with the headset is excellent. Voice feedback during calls was an interesting concept that I was getting used to.

But who cares? It randomly shuts down in the middle of meetings with 70% battery! And, if you use the auto-pause feature ( default on, btw ) , it randomly mutes your microphone with literally no notice or rapid method to return to voice.

Such as shame.

I never really leave bad reviews. If something is bad I usually return the item and the place I got it from fixes the issue with a new product that works as it should in a timely manner and I forget all about the issue.

These headphones sound fantastic, but it’s not at all worth the daily headache that I go through trying to get them to work properly. The first pair that I ordered had an issue where they just wouldn’t power on, despite having a full battery. Tried re-installing everything multiple times and updating the firmware, to no avail. So I figured it was just that specific pair were defective. I returned them and purchased another pair after only having the first pair for about two - three months.

The second pair worked great for about a month and a half? Maybe two? Now I’m having three issues that just make these headphones ridiculously tedious and obnoxious to even use at all.

- the headphones have started turning off completely after using for about 30 minutes, so I have to power them back on with the button, which sometimes works and sometimes takes about 3 minutes to work.

- despite also purchasing the dongle, the connection will sometimes disconnect as if I were walking into a different room entirely; when I’m two feet away from my PC… this happens for about 30 seconds, every 5 to 10 minutes. Everytime I hear it start crackling, it feels like my life span decreases due to the instant spike of blood pressure I feel every single time. Not a vibe.

- the right headphone pad is way way way too finicky. It’s a touch pad, and sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

I did like two hours of research before purchasing these and after about 6 months of two pairs of testing, I have never been this disappointed with a purchase. If you’re reading this, I strongly suggest looking into other options. I was under the impression that Sennheiser was top-notch quality and while the “quality” of the headphones themselves are great, the functionality is extremely poor and like one of the many reddit users whose comments I had to read troubleshooting these headphones mentioned; I’m not even sure why these headphones got released to the public. I’ve purchased $50 skull candy headphones from Walmart with better Bluetooth functionality than these, unfortunately. Already starting the return process, for the second time. 😩 Giving them two stars only because the case that they come in is nice loooool

I came to these from the Sony XM5s, which are good but hurt my ears. These are super comfortable, with great sound and solid noise canceling. I was also impressed by the battery life

Summary: If you care about comfort and sound quality when listening to music, and you can live with very good but not absolute best active noise cancellation. These Sennheiser headphones are the only option.

PROs: Best sound qualify for music (hands down). Most comfortable. Best headphone controls. Best battery life. Work well for virtual meetings and phone calls. App for advanced settings and controls is as good or better than competition.
CONs: Active noise cancellation is effective (good), but a step down from Sony XM5 and Bose 700.

I read endless reviews of these and other headphones, then tried these five models for myself. My experience was consistent with the vast majority of on-line reviews: If you prioritize sound quality and comfort for listening to music, these Sennheiser are the only option to consider. The active noise cancellation is a small step below the others, but I can live with that. For listening to music, all the others are are LARGE step below these Sennheiser M4s. I found these to be more comfortable than any of the others. I also wanted the ability to easily change volume, pause/unpause, and skip song forward/back - the touch controls on these Sennheiser's worked better for me than the controls on any of the other headphones.
It does not hurt that these are among the least expensive and have far superior battery life. They come with a nice protective carry case, and while they don't fold down as small as the older models, they are more compact than the newest competitor models. I had no issues with the Android app. I was able to use AptX-HD codec and the improvement in music sound qualify was noticeable. I had no Bluetooth connection issues, including when the headphones were connected to both my phone and my computer.

Fantastic sound, amazing battery life (up to 60 hrs!), superb companion App.

Very comfortable and lightweight, intuitive touch controls.

Great for $250 or less! If you can wait for a deal or buy open box, go for it. Not sure if the value is there at retail.

These headphones, on paper, seem damn near perfect. The 60 hour battery is wonderful, it charges quick, and overall nice not having to plug my headphones in every night. The sound! Oh these things sound amazing! Truly the hardware is wonderful! Only downside in the touchpad is literally the entire right side of the headphones and you better hope your hands aren't dirty and there's absolutely zero hair anywhere near it or it will just straight up not recognize your commands

Then, there's the software. The "Smart Connect" app is hot garbage on a good day. I never know when I start the app if it will actually connect to the headphones or if it will just sit there and say they're disconnected! (App version 4.3.2 on Android 13 with a Pixel 6 Pro). It will seemingly randomly change the ANC even when "adaptive" mode is disabled, the equalizer sucks, and the automatic pause thing is unreliable in perfect conditions!

And then there's the firmware. Holy crap, it's bad. Multiple times now there's been firmware updates that bork the headphones, and of course, there's no rollback feature so you can't even go to an older version that didn't suck. The current one (2.13.18) added aptX adaptive support, along with a five band EQ. Seems like a nice update right? Nah, now whenever I'm listening to stuff it will randomly pop, hiss, and in general bork the audio. The only fix is to turn off the headset, turn off BT, and then turn both back on. Wanna report the firmware as buggy? Only option is to do a "5 minute" survey that literally asks you if you're happy with your life and your lifestyle!

Overall I think Sennheiser should add physical button control back and maybe hire some competent software and firmware engineers. I cannot in good conscience recommend these headphones to anyone until Sennheiser gets their stuff together.

Sounded great out of the box, even better after fine tuning through the app. Noise canceling is very good! Battery life is ridiculous. Took these on a trip to Germany. Wore them non-stop on the plane, hardly put a dent in the battery. I also tried the Sonys, and while their noise cancellation was fractionally better, I thought the sound quality was better on these and given the price difference (and complaints of Sony breaking) it was an easy decision.

Love, love, love these Sennheiser Momentum 4s! They just do EVERYTHING WELL! Sound? They have the BEST sound! They have the BEST battery life - by a mile! They have awesome noise cancellation! They are SUPER comfortable, and easy to use. Stop thinking. These are wonderful! Buy them!!

I already had plans to buy these but after my Sennheiser CX wireless earbuds took a tumble in the washer, I kinda had to get these. I was already aware of the numerous issues that people had with these headphones but after having these for 2 weeks, I never ran into any of them.

First Impression- Overall really like the look of these with the fabric headband and an all-around clean look. A little plasticky feeling but it isn't the kind of cheap plastic you would find on inexpensive headphones.

Sound Quality-
Now I'm not a big headphone person or audiophile guy but to me, these sound great and are probably one of the best-sounding over-ear wireless headphones I've ever owned. Super clear sound and very good bass.

Call Quality-
Mic is what you’d expect. Not the best but it's good enough for calls. I was able to hear clearly from people on the other end and they heard me on the other end perfectly fine. Side-Tone works great too however I don't like hearing myself so I keep it off.

ANC-
It really isn't that bad, although it doesn't match the quality that Sony headphones have, it's enough to water out most sounds around you however lower frequencies tend to pass through.

App and Controls-
The app is super easy to navigate through with a lot of settings to choose from. One of these settings would be an equalizer so you can mess around and find your own preferred sound configuration. Touch controls definitely took some time to get used to but they are very reactive to touch and I don't think you’ll need to do any double tapping. You can also disable touch controls if you don't like them. To address pairing issues, I had absolutely none. Might be different for you since I do still see these complaints every now and then.

Comfort-
Comfort is something that comes down to preference and to me, these were very comfortable on my head. I have a very large head so I had to adjust these to the max and they fit super well. Ear cups are nice and soft and the padding on the headband is firm on the sides and super squishy on the top. Overall super comfy on my head and I’ve yet to run into any issues with discomfort.

Battery Life-
Battery life is also pretty great too. 60 hours of battery life is more than plenty and can last you a whole week depending on how often you use them.

Overall I think these are great all-around headphones that are great for daily use and travel. Of course, these do have some issues but they don't bother me enough to not recommend these headphones.

easy to use when it is connected to tv. I stay up late watching tv and I do not half to worry if it will keep
someone a sleep up due to Tv.

The software and touch features are not quite there. On the way to excellent but missing the mark. Bose noise cancellation works better. I think they should have added physical buttons and not the buggy touch gestures.

It's a great headphone, sound quality is superior than any headphones i have used before, fits perfectly.. but i fractured my right hand a week after i purchased only then i acknowledge that tap features work only on right side of headphones and it sucks to know that.. probably

The sound is amazing… Every time I’m done listening I put it on the charger and when it’s done charging I turn it off and I put it in the box and then when I go to put them on again it’s dead again and it happens every single time… I want headphones especially once this expensive to be ready to go when I pick them up… If I’m doing my part and charging…

The sound on these is amazing. I can wear them all day and again at. The battery never seems to run out, I'm honestly blown away by the battery life. They were expensive but worth the cost.

I trust Sennheiser and have several pairs of quality headphones from them that I've used for years. These have been a mixed bag. Great audio quality and battery life, but marred by severe control issues and glitches. They decide they are removed from my head and pause themselves frequently. So I disabled that feature. Now, occasionally, they get into a mode during phone calls / zoom calls where they announce "MUTE ON" and. "MUTE OFF" with no effect every few seconds until they're disconnected and reset. I have every smart feature off, so there shouldn't even be any sensors to cause this problem. There are other issues, too. It's easy to brush the touch pad by accident. Double tapping to enable/disable transparency mode also frequently pauses/resumes audio simultaneously. They just feel finicky and glitchy, overall, which is disappointing.

Perfect sound. Brutal battery and easy to handdle. Thanks.

I had a Bose 700 NC before, had the Sony flagship 3, this one is amazing, touch controls are amazing, mic quality is perfect, and above all sound is crisp via blue tooth as it uses aptx

The person responsible for adding gestures to these headsets, should not be making those types of recommendations. When one buys a headset, they arguably want just one or a few things. I personally simply want to take a phone call with the least amount of interruptions to the audio and the call itself.

Since using these headphones my calls have been more annoying than they were before the headset. If you adjust the headset to make them more comfortable around your ears, you will likely mute the call. Then if you try to unmute, sometimes it doesnt work. Leading to the caller on the other end, asking "are you there?" This sometimes leads to them hanging up and us having to start the call again.

Then when I go to put them on. 2/10 times, I have to reset the headset, as they are no longer responding to the power button. So then I have to plug them in, which seems to do some sort of restart on them.

I wish I could return these $350+ POS headsets. However I missed the window by a few days and now I am condemned to my own little hell with these annoying abominations.

I don't plan to buy Sennheiser again, which is a bummer as the call quality when they are not f'ing up, is pretty good.

I bought this in Feb and this is only May. About three months, I used about 10 times and bluetooth start to fail the paring.

It keeps failing to pair numerous times even if I delete from phone setting, delete the app whatsoever.

Headphone doesn't turn off no more at all and keep trying to pair the device (and keep failing).

Now I have to sending to customer service to repair while I still have payment left.

This is so frustrating for such A brand name product.

(This is copy-pasted from my Trustpilot review:

I don't understand how on Earth a headset can have such good build quality and amazing audio quality, but the software can be so bad it's laughable. I will be returning my headset (Momentum 4 wireless).

To start out, the audio quality is AMAZING. I'm coming from the sony WH1000-XM4s. It's the best I've ever head. I can differentiate between 16 bit and 24 bit very reliably. Lossy audio over Bluetooth is very noticeable now. No complaints there.

The build quality is also really nice. I love the materials used, the weight, and how the headband extends. All around really nice feel.

The software that the headset has, on the other had, completely ruins all of that. Here's a list of every problem I've noticed in the two days I've had my hands on it:

- There is no ability to turn ANC or transparency off. You must choose one at all times.

- Transparency mode makes things twice as loud for some reason. I literally don't know where to start with this

- There's no palm detection for the touch gestures to quickly enable transparency mode. Does the headset not have multitouch hardware? If so, why?

- There's no way to customize the touch gestures. It even says this in the app. That's rediculous.

- If you have the automatic play-pause feature turned on, which pauses the music when you take the headset off, and plays it when you put it back on, the tones even if you're using the headphone cable. I haven't tested with a four pole cable, but the included one is three poles so I'm going to deduct that the headset doesn't have the ability to play/pause when using the headphone cable.
-Firmware update takes half an hour??? Why?

- The app really, really buggy slow, and generally difficult to use.

- When using USB connection, if you activate the microphone it goes to some really low quality mono audio mode for no apparent reason. Is this something the headset does where it thinks it's in a phone call when the microphone is on, so it just does this with no second thought?

- ANC is really bad. It is laughably bad. In adaptive mode, any sudden or sharp noise, no matter how small reduces the ANC effect. It's really noticable and distracting, especially when typing. In non-adaptive mode, the ANC does essentially nothing.

- I have voice prompts turned off but it still talks to me when I connect to bluetooth. It also says how much battery I have when I touch the power button, even though there's LEDs on the bottom which show battery charge. I have it turned off, I expect it off.

- You can adjust the volume when using the headphone jack. This is really confusing.

- This isn't a software issue, but why does it use a 2.5mm headphone jack? There seems to be no reason to do this since the cups are plenty large enough to support an extra mm. The included cable also doesn't have any clear markings on which end is the 2.5mm one.

- The touch gestures are really stupid. A single tap to do anything is a really bad decision, since it's very easy to accidentally touch the touch-sensitive area when adjusting the earphone. And again, they can't be customized. Like what? Why? That should take a software engineer like a day to implement, at worst.

I don't get it. Is this intentional? There's no way Senheizer is ignorant to these problems. Do they not test stuff at all? This is really bad. There's gotta be some really abhorrent management problems over at Sennheizer for it to be this bad. These headphones have been out for a year (released August 9th, 2022) and every issue in my list should have never been present at any point during release. This is really, really bad. I'll be staying away from Sennheizer for a very long time, and you should to. I expect way more from flagship headphones.

These assume that you want to listen to music from your phone or mobile device. I do not but the configuration app has to be somewhere. This means that the headphones will answer calls on my phone when I do not want it to even notify me. In a prior software version of the app I could "disable" the phone which disconnected it from answering calls. The latest firmware update removed that feature so ... 3 stars because of the poor app functionality which you MUST have. Stay away if, like me, you just want to listen to music without interruption.

end of story

ok fine, ill go further, they always connect when I dont want them to, if I bump them accidentally and my phones bluetooth is on, then it will just auto connect and make my audio go into them even if im not wearing them, so I go into my bluetooth settings and turn them off, and they'll basically continue to fight that until I just turn bluetooth off entirely on my phone

now on my pc, it will connect in my bluetooth settings, but wont appear as an output device until i reset my entire machine. Id love to snap these cans in half and get some real headphones, but unfortunately the honeymoon phase lasted too long for me

I'm not impressed, there's static in the background for every song and conversation. The package did not have it's plastic wrapper and none of the item inside the bag has the wrapper. There are smudges on the right earphone as you can see in the picture. Clearly this set is NOT NEW!! It's unacceptable when you sell it as new. This is going back to Amazon for full refund.