Thoughts on Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4

[otc]

Burn-in? For wireless earbuds? Someone sold you a big line of BS and you believed them.

I trust myself.

 

[Doodski]

I trust myself.

You are telling yourself a dream, a fantasy etc. When the device is at it's prime is when it is new. Why would it get better with use?

 

[otc]

You are telling yourself a dream, a fantasy etc. When the device is at it's prime is when it is new. Why would it get better with use?

Even a new car only reaches peak performance after about 6000 km of use. This was even written in the owner's manual when I bought a new car. I have used 2 Sennheiser headphones, one is wired, and one is wireless. I was inherently skeptical about burnin, but my own experience made me believe this. This is hard to argue with.

 

[Doodski]

Even a new car only reaches peak performance after about 6000 km of use. This was even written in the owner's manual when I bought a new car. I have used 2 Sennheiser headphones, one is wired, and one is wireless. I was inherently skeptical about burnin, but my own experience made me believe this. This is hard to argue with.

Cars and electronics are so different that your belief is far fetched and comical in the absurdity of the belief. There is no real burn in with ear buds. At a microscopic level there may be some change in the suspension (If it has one.) of the driver(s) but it is miniscule and not a factor in what you can hear. The same for headphones and speakers. Changes are infinitesimally small. So you can release yourself from this delusion and start using science instead of analogies and false equivalents.

 

[otc]

The speaker membrane is very hard when new, so it is very important to use it scientifically when new. That will affect the performance of the headphones later. I won't argue further, and understand that this will have divided opinions, but don't underestimate someone else's point of view if it differs from yours.

 

[Doodski]

The speaker membrane is very hard when new, so it is very important to use it scientifically when new. That will affect the performance of the headphones later. I won't argue further, and understand that this will have divided opinions, but don't underestimate someone else's point of view if it differs from yours.

Point of view is not valid. What is valid is that the sound is peak when it is new and from there the device has a life expectancy and it degrades until death. Break-in is a urban rumor, a myth and not real. You are at a science based website and we run the numbers that way and we generally on such a topic don't have points of view. We do not encourage break-in beliefs here.

 

[Bjorn]

The weakness of the Sennheiser Momentum ear buds and headphones is the noise cancelling. I have the Momentum 4 headphones now, and had the ear buds before that. The ear buds were more or less useless on a plane. The headphones have better noise cancelling but isn't great either and can't compare to Sony.

Sound quality is pretty good. Sounds quite neutral but they lack the openness and detail of something better. I also find them a bit unengagement to listen to, but I'm used big speakers with horns and planar magnetics that is another world.

Edit: I see that I had the Sennheiser Momentum 3 ear buds. Don't have experience with Momentum 4 ear buds.

 

[IAtaman]

The speaker membrane is very hard when new, so it is very important to use it scientifically when new. That will affect the performance of the headphones later. I won't argue further, and understand that this will have divided opinions, but don't underestimate someone else's point of view if it differs from yours.

Except this is not really a matter of point of view. Just because something makes sense to us, does not mean it is true.

Is Headphones Break-in Real? 120-hour Burn-in Test

Headphones break-in, or burn-in, refers to the idea that the sound of headphones tend to change over time and certain headphones need to be used for a while before they settle into a more optimum sound. We put this idea to the test.

www.rtings.com

 

[krumpol]

I trust myself.

This is covered by psychology of sound, which is part of psychoacoustics.
Please watch this short experiment demonstrating how cognitive functions of our brain deceive us by interpreting received sounds:

 

[usersky]

Even a new car only reaches peak performance after about 6000 km of use. This was even written in the owner's manual when I bought a new car. I have used 2 Sennheiser headphones, one is wired, and one is wireless. I was inherently skeptical about burnin, but my own experience made me believe this. This is hard to argue with.

Aren't car analogies cute? Let me try another one: even a glass for water reaches peak peformance after 200 drinks.

 

[Brian Hall]

The speaker membrane is very hard when new, so it is very important to use it scientifically when new. That will affect the performance of the headphones later. I won't argue further, and understand that this will have divided opinions, but don't underestimate someone else's point of view if it differs from yours.

As you use speakers, headphones or IEMs, your brain adjusts to how they sound. The only burn-in happening is your brain getting used to how the device sounds. If you insist on saying there is such a thing as burn-in, your credibility will drop.

 

[SuicideSquid]

My wife gave me the MTW3 model for Christmas last year and they broke recently. I wasn't super thrilled with the MTW3 - they were fine, but the noise cancellation wasn't particularly good and they were kind of stuffy in the midrange.

Sennheiser replaced my MTW3 with the new MTW4, and the MTW4 is a big improvement across the board IMO. They still sound a bit congested out of the box, but I saw a review recently with some measurements showing the "pop" EQ setting tracks the harman curve pretty closely. I switched to Pop in the EQ and dialed back the boost at 4kHz a bit (I find the harman curve a touch bright for IEMs) and now they sound fantastic. The noise cancellation is also noticeably improved from the MTW3