Sennheiser Momentum 4 Headphone Review

I haven't truly liked that many Bluetooth ANC headphones, but there have been a couple that have been deemed worthy of purchase from me. I really like the Sony H.Ear On 2 from a few years back. It had a decent frequency response that wasn't the muddy mid-bass that most have on the market, and a generally decent treble range. It did not do much for technical performance, but it was adequate enough, and its ANC was comparable to many things out there, though not at the same level as their flagship 1000X series.

Then I bought the AKG N700NCM2. This was a Harman-tuning profile with wireless and bluetooth! It perhaps had a little too much sub-bass and a little too shrilly in the upper-mids, but it was one of the best sounding ANC headphones at the time of its released. It wasn't a great looking headphone, and it was not super comfortable either as it had somewhat small cups, and a lot of clamp, but it was a trade-off I took for the audiophile in me who wanted good tonality.

Earlier this year, I decided to test the market and take a blind purchase on the Sennheiser Momentum 4. Its frequency response measured by Crinacle looks a bit crazy, with a ton of bass boost, but the mid-range and treble looked nearly perfect for my tastes. 

After receiving it, I quickly affirmed the graph with the crazy bass, but solid mid-range and treble. Luckily, the Sennheiser app has a simple EQ feature and taking 3 steps off of the default bass level made this headphone sound quite good. I actually enjoyed listening to this headphone throughout my trip.

With the bass EQ change, I found the tonal balance to be quite in-line with what I would prefer. The one thing this headphone does that my other ANC headphones I've had in the past don't is that I actually have a sense of depth and soundstage width. Perhaps the "no-rise" in the 1KHz region, ala Hifiman, is responsible for this, but I really like this as it gives vocals and piano a not-so-forward sound, and balances out the staging for me. 

Technical performance is decent for a headphone, let alone a bluetooth one. I do wish it had LDAC capability though. But this is definitely a headphone I'd recommend at least demoing if you're in the market for an ANC headphone.

One of its critiques is that it's ANC performance is quite a bit lower than the TOTL Bose and Sony competitors. That's probably true, but I did not find any issues using this on a crowded jumbo jet at any time. I am not a great fan of its pass-through ambient mode, as I think it enhances/increases volume too much in general and becomes more distracting than natural, but it works in quieter areas, just not something I'd like to use in a crowded airport. But then again, in those places, I may just want to enable noise cancellation anyway.

All in all, I am very happy with my purchase of the Momentum 4 headphones. They are one of the most comfortable wireless headphones out there, and they have good enough sound and noise canceling capabilities to keep this audiophile happy.