Post updated July 20th, 2020 at 01:55 am
Sennheiser. Mention the brand to anybody with an ear – no pun intended – for personal and wireless audio, more often than not, its name, among others, is often evoked simply because of the quality behind its products. In the True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds market, the company is renowned for its MOMENTUM True Wireless earbuds that launched last year.
It’s been a year since then, and this time we’ll be taking a look at the brand’s follow-up and 2nd generation pair of earbuds, aptly named the MOMENTUM True Wireless 2.
What Is It?
To reiterate the obvious, the True Wireless 2 are Sennheiser’s 2nd generation TWS earbuds that is also a part of the brand’s MOMENTUM lineup. Like its predecessor, these earbuds come with its own luxurious-feeling and premium-looking charging case. That holds an additional 21 hours worth of power or three full charges for the earbuds.
On the subject of battery, the True Wireless 2 itself is capable of seven hours of continuous playback; nearly double the battery life of the 1st generation True Wireless earbuds. Additional features of the True Wireless 2 include an IPX4 water and dust resistant rating, and three additional pairs of eartips, from small the XL.
The most important point of all, though, is that the True Wireless 2 supports Qualcomm’s aptX audio technology, along with the usual fare of audio codecs.
Is It Any Good?
The first, and probably the most crucial feature of any earbuds is the fitting. On that note, I am both glad and elated to inform you that the True Wireless 2 earbuds fit like an absolute dream. Compared to Klipsch’s T5 True Wireless, these ones don’t have a tendency of falling out of my ears every time I swallow or simply engage my jaw muscles. Oh, and swapping out the earbuds are significantly less of a chore, too.
Touch-based controls are simple and extremely intuitive. Unlike Sony’s WF-1000XM3, you don’t have to choose between which control function takes precedence on which earbud. Each earbud comes with its own set of functions and each function corresponds to a set number of taps; by default, the left earbud plays hosts to the play/pause and track scrolling functions, while the right earbud has access to Google Assistant, the “Transparent Hearing” mode that is essentially Sennheiser’s version of Ambient sound mode. And the ANC mode.
On top of that, you can even modify those functions via the official Sennheiser Smart Control App, which also comes with a highly intuitive and very graphics-heavy
As for audio quality, sound staging and clarity are definitely key traits of the True Wireless 2’s finer qualities. Regardless of the track – and provided that you’re listening to 320Kbps, FLAC, or anything of greater quality – the instruments used are easily identifiable along with their placement on the soundstage.
On a somewhat related note, I should point out a seemingly odd trait: for the more instrumentally-inclined tracks, these things have a tendency to be brought forward with the True Wireless 2, thus making the main attraction of a song (i.e. vocals, guitar solos) sound a little undermined. That’s not a bad thing, by any measure, but it definitely cements my initial comment about sound staging being a key-focus point.
To that end, the lows of the True Wireless 2 are deep and can be felt in the back of my head with no presence of distortion, especially with tracks such as Nina Simone’s Feeling Good and Tool’s Fear Inoculum. Mids and highs are, dare I say, obscenely clear with no signs of breaking. And this is self-evident in songs like Dinah Washington’s rendition of Bessie Smith’s After You’ve Gone and Jane Monheit’s Over The Rainbow.
The Bad Stuff. Tell Me.
The maximum volume of the True Wireless 2 isn’t as high as I would like it to be; it’s an advantage that my own Klipsch T5’s has over these earbuds. To be clear, I’m not encouraging people to listen to their music or video content at deafening volumes, but I have a personal tendency to lean into music by bumping up the volume. Especially when it’s enjoyable. In its defence, however, it’s still significantly higher than the WF-1000XM3’s.
On another note, low pitches on the True Wireless 2, while not immediately noticeable, seems to vary from track to track. To put it in layman terms, some songs have a bass that is either very soft, while the bass in other tracks has a tendency of blowing off my eardrum.
The only other sticking point about the True Wireless 2 would be its price: brand new, Sennheiser’s 2nd generation MOMENTUM earbuds retail for RM1499.
Should I Buy It?
At RM1499, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 2 is undoubtedly the most expensive pair of TWS earbuds that I’ve ever had the pleasure to test. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that theseare an audiophile’s dream earbuds, and to be fair, there are other equally impressive brands out there that I can recommend within the same price bracket, if not less.
That said, there is very little that would stop me from recommending the True Wireless 2 to people in the market for premium quality earbuds.
