Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4 review

[Voidweaver]

With relation to my recent post about these earbuds, I decided to buy and try them. I've been using them for a few days now, and in this thread I intend to share my personal opinion on them in the form of an amateur review.

Please keep in mind I am not a professional reviewer, I have no specialized equipment to test these earbuds, and what follows should not be judged as a professional review.

The value is just not there in my opinion. I paid exactly 411 USD for these earbuds (I got +2 years warranty, without that the price goes down to 330 USD). For that rather high price I expected an outstanding performance on all fronts, but I got disappointed on a few of them. Let me break down the categories and score I'd give for each (1 being lowest):

• Design - 8/10
  • The design of the case and earbuds is clean and elegant. Main reason I took away 2 points is because the case is covered in this textile cloth material that will most likely get quite dirty with time and be virtually impossible to clean well without risking water damage to the case itself. Also, the earbuds themselves are quite bulky and stick out the ear a fair bit.
• Build Quality - 9/10
  • Sennheiser definitely didn't skim on materials when making those. The plastic they're made out of is high quality, and they feel sturdy and pleasant to the touch. I'd have preferred the outer side of the buds to be in aluminium instead of plastic, which is why I took out 1 point.
• Sound Quality - 9/10
  • Typical for Sennheiser, the sound quality is top-notch. I have no complaints here, apart from maybe a slight struggle in the mids. Bass and highs are crisp, though.
• Noise Cancellation - 2/10
  • This is perhaps my biggest gripe with these earbuds. I expected decent ANC, but what I got was honestly pretty bad. On full ANC mode with a perfect fit in my ear, I could still hear most of my environment rather clearly. In the gym, I could hear the music being played very clearly unless I pumped up the volume to the max, which is neither pleasant nor healthy. With no music on, just having them in my ears, I could still clearly hear most of my surroundings, and even the faintest finger snaps a meter away from my head were audible. Earbuds at this price point should not have such a poor ANC performance.
• Microphone - 3/10
  • The microphone on these buds is almost as disappointing as their ANC. With perfect network coverage, people could still hear me quite badly, saying my voice sounds muffled and unclear.
• Connectivity - 9/10
  • Not much to complain about here. The buds can connect to devices using all the new flashy bluetooth stuff and transfer data in all kinds of high quality audio codecs, which is no surprise considering again how much they cost.
• Box Contents - 8/10
  • In total, you get four ear adapter sets (XS/S/M/L) and three ear fin sets (S/M/L) apart from all the necessities such as a USB-C charging cable (very short one, btw) and manuals. I wouldn't have said no to some cleaning and maintenance tools in the box.
• Touch Controls - 5/10
  • The touch control scheme itself is intuitive and not hard to get used to, but the response is too slow. Whenever you tap an earbud to activate transparency mode, for example, it takes a full 1.5-2 secs before it actually registers. So when someone comes up to me to talk, I have to tap on the earbud and sit there for 2 seconds before I can hear anything they say. There's literally no good reason for the response time to be this slow on earbuds that cost as much.
• Mobile App - 3/10
  • The app has most of what you'll probably ever need, but the UI is not very intuitive, the app itself is slow, and has no cache for stuff that it definitely should have cache for. When you minimize the app and reopen it after some time, it has to boot up entirely anew, which takes a bit of time. Swapping through menus takes time as well. Having to restart the buds every time you change the audio quality is also a nuisance that I'm sure could have been avoided.

Overall I have to say this is the first time I'm disappointed by a Sennheiser product. I've owned a few of their headphones and I've always been happy with them, but these earbuds ain't it. I'll be returning them and perhaps waiting out to see how the new AirPods perform before buying another pair.

Hopefully this helps someone that's considering purchasing these earbuds.

Cheers!

 

[TAsme]

I got the MTW4 and also the Sony WF5 series.

The differences in between those are:
1. The Sennis seem to meant to play at max volume - there they shine, while the XM5s somehow loose sound quality at max volume
2. LDAC at 990k is horrible when you are near a busy street, while APTX Lossless works great.

I personally prefer the Sennheisers Soundsignature over the Sony's.

I do wonder why you would opt for the Sennheisers, when you seem to have an IPhone.
At least I assume so, since you are waiting for the new Air pods. No APTX lossless for you on the IPhone, so why even bother with the Sennheisers?

 

[Voidweaver]

I don't have an iPhone and don't plan on getting one.

 

[TAsme]

So this is getting confusing now.
No IPhone, so you are not going to be able to use AAC, just SBC?
Is your current phone able to utilize APTX Lossless or even adaptive?
Why bother getting expensive Earbuds when SBC would be enough for you?

 

[Voidweaver]

It has APTX Lossless, yes. But as I said, this is the least of my concerns. The ANC on these earbuds is just not up to par. I wish I could return them, but the vendor I got them from is refusing to receive them and we're at a stalemate because they're utilizing a loophole in the consumer electronics law in my country. Perhaps I'll sell them as second hand and deal with the loss of some money and that's it...

 

[TAsme]

I just read that you are pretty new to Audio in another thread.
Also there you said that you are not in loud environments. But still the notice cancelling is not enough for you?
Noice cancelling will never be perfect, especially when in a gym where sudden loud noises will appear. Also it does degrade the sound.
I would say try to hear to them louder, without noicecanceling. The Sound is better and the louder volume will get rid of your surrounding sounds. Also, at least here in the EU, the max volume is regulated so that it won't damage your hearing.
Just to add this one thing - ya the mics are ****** for phone calls.
If you don't like them get rid of them, but there might not be better alternatives out there since there is always a limitation.