This is the official discussion thread for the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless headphones with ANC.
I’d like to hear a comparison to the Bathys.
I own both. Bathys sounds better, no doubt. Better mids, more balanced and natural bass, clearer highs, more balanced sound overall But they are 2x the price of the Momentum 4 !
I wouldn’t use the Bathys as my main headphones for work or travel use. Momentum 4 are better at managing calls on Teams and at work and better suited for travel. They are also more sober and discrete in its looks, better suited for work environment. Momentum 4 has far better battery life and easier to pair with work computer and other gear (iPhone/iPad). ANC is also more performant for work or travel (plane) environment. Sound wise the Momentum 4 are great, just less refined. Its bass is a bit on the heavy side, which can be a plus or a minus depending on what you listen to. Sometimes the bass and sub bass reminds me of the HD25 (a classic studio and DJ headphone from Sennheiser that is still
Popular after more than 35 years since its introduction). Sometimes I will lower the bass level with EQ to get a more natural and balanced sound. Mids and highs are good and better balanced.
But for better sound around the house Bathys are more refined. No doubt. Near perfect closed back in my opinion. I use them wireless and lossless with USB-C cable. Most of my headphones are wired and open back (HD800s, Focal Clear MG, HE400i, HD660S2, HD6XX, HD600) and I was looking for a comparable closed back wired headphone for living room usage. I considered a few (Focal Radiance and Celestee for example) but I finally realized that the Bathys, although mainly a wireless Bluetooth headphone, was also suited as a great living room wired headphone (using usb-c cable in lossless mode). It’s that good.
So both Bathys and Momentum 4 get my everyday usage, but each for their own optimized usage. Just my humble experience with both headphones.
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A couple of days ago, I was planning on writing about the Momentum 4, when I was called away to do some support for family due to a death. I’m finally back and hope I can recall most of what I’d planned.
The urge to write was triggered by some time to try the Momentum in wired mode. The chain was Qobuz via iPad Mini to Luxury & Precision W4 to the Momentum. I also listened some to Apple Classical.
The Momentum seems very Sennheiser-like. It should be easy to drive, if one goes by the astonishing battery life, but I found that it is less easy than my Grado RS1e, or even the Rosson RAD-0. Not that it is difficult, but I found I was turning up the volume on the W4 to 80 or 85 out of 100 on a number of tracks in NORMAL mode, and the Rossons would have a similar perceived volume at about 70-75%.
The Momentum is quite musical, and is not tiring to listen to. Soundstage is average. The bass is a bit boosted, but not overly so. Not so noticeable on pop, but definite on classical is a Sennheiser veil. Switching the W4 EQ to “Classical” helped quite a bit, making the sound a bit more refined and bringing out the strings, higher wind, and cymbals, adding a bit of realism to percussion. It still sounds to me as if another DB or two in the 3 to 4K range would help.
What is amazing to me is that these are the first closed backs I’ve heard in a very long time that sound natural. I have no internal echo, even with the ANC off. Like @PeteMtl I find them easy to pair with any of my devices.
The biggest downside for me are the earpads, which feel exceedingly pleather. Perhaps this is to enhance noise reduction. They seal well even around my wire-rim glasses, and on a warm day, I can get a bit of sweat where the pads contact the sides of my head. Fortunately, this does not translate into heat and sweat inside the cups - for me it seems relegated to the earpad area. They are otherwise quite comfortable.
The Momentum 4 has become my movie-watching headphone of choice, supplanting the better sound and detail from the Hive E-stats and the awesome dynamics and sinister bass of the HD6xx/Lyr3/BiFrost 2/64 chain. Primarily because yes, I like the wireless for watching Ashoka and Foundation…
At the price, (Roughly $275-300 at current discounts) I have really no complaints. The controls are relatively intuitive for standard items - taking calls, volume up/down, skip, and changing the ANC toward transparency mode. I have yet to use them on a plane, but they do a good job of filtering out AC and the idjit next door with the table saw in his driveway.
I though long and hard about the Bathys, and was seriously thinking about ordering them, but the recent price cut on the Momentum 4 had just come through, and they were on the rack at BestBuy, so that decided me. I’m not price-sensitive in the Bathys range, but I still have never heard them. Reviews on the net suggested the Sennheiser Momentum 4’s versatility and easy pairing might tip me there in the absence of direct temptation.
Oh yes, the travel case is neat and tidy, and the Momentum comes with cheap USB cables and a 3.5 mm to 2.5mm skinny cheap connector cable. It looks flimsy, I’m going to have James at Hart Audio make me something better, I think. Probably silver to possibly help with any bit of brightness against the Sennheiser veil.
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And here it is. 4 ft, 8 braid silver. I think it was $85. Just used it a bit, on non-critical listening, but that’s generally how I use the Momentums. I find I’m using them in wired mode at least as much as Bluetooth.
The original Sennheiser cable is above, in cheap skinny black. And the Hart cable is there in obvious glory. I do think it is a tad brighter with the Hart cable (which I wanted, but I really can’t say for sure based on the short time), and 4 ft is exactly right for convenience. As usual, the Hart just shows quality.
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I’ve always been a IEM listener from my Etymotics to Shures 846 to the Flare Audio Golds, my first venture in the over the ear headphones is the wireless Sennheiser Momentums 4 I just picked up for $120 with some discounts in place. Made it a no brainer to jump into the full size headphone audio experience. I gotta say I’m enjoying these Senn M4’S, Bluetooth sound isn’t a comprise for me through these and to boot I can connect them up with a usb c to usb c cable end to end for hi res audio and really test out the audiophile 42mm in house Senn created audio transducers. They are quite a package in every audio performance aspect. Battery life on bluetooth has been amazingly long ranging up to the advertised 60 hours. Anyone else that is using this headphone to get the most out of this headphone is to use the Sound Personalization built into the app. It was co developed with Fraunhofer Institute. The sound personalization process optimizes tunes the headphones to the users sound preferences. This is where they transform and morph into pure magical audio output making the MT4’S super sound customizable. My advise is to leave the eq settings alone and only tune these MT4’S only with the sound personalization feature in the app. Can this end my desire for spending anymore on the audio hobby. This might keep me happy for awhile longer lol I don’t want to hear anything better, I’m leaving now 
Welcome and thanks for the thought about using the personalization. I just haven’t tried that yet. I did use EQ but generally leave it flat, and since I do use the USB wired With my Hart Silver cable that I had made for them I will play with EQ on the DAC side, using the luxury & precision W4
Pardon, my weird capitalizations because I am using my phone and dictating.
I wrote this a while back, but never pressed submit:
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.
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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.
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Thanks for your writeup, well said. One question I want to confirm that you tried and tested in the app that Sound Personalization setting and customization? To me this holds more sound individual customization than the eq built into the smart sound app. I was discounting and not having much confidence in the SP feature to improve on the MT4’S but I’m impressed what a difference it makes to the sound profile of the headphones.
My 2nd question is have you experienced this creaking sound on the right side articulated arm pivot as I discussed here,
I havent actually used that setting yet actually. I’m fairly happy with the stock sound for the most part, but perhaps I’ll give it a go to see how it works.
I don’t know if anyone mentioned this or had this experience but if you run these in USB wired mode the sound takes on a more relaxed, expansive nature with more air around the instruments. It’s not major but it’s noticeable.
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Also, does anyone know of ANY way to make ambient mode turn OFF during phone calls? This is incredibly annoying and a real slam against the headphone’s functionality.
Yep. I replaced the cheesy included cable with a silver one from Hart. Mentioned the better sound in my notes also.
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