There have been a lot of high-end headphones hitting the market as of late. If you still can’t decide what to choose, then you might be interested in Sennheiser’s newest over-ears, the Momentum 5 Wireless. While its RM1,999 price tag might not be the easiest to swallow, it still offers some impressive features that make it worth considering.
What Am I Looking At?
If you happen to own the Momentum 4 or the HDB 630, manage your expectations on the design; the Momentum 5 Wireless shares a similar design, though with some internal tweaks. Basically, it’s a “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” scenario, I suppose. The audio equipment largely features a plastic body, faux leather padding for the ear cups and headband cushioning and some cloth detailing that make it a tad more premium.
As far as functionality and operability go, the Momentum 5 Wireless heavily relies on touch controls to help control the volume, ANC, and playback. There’s a physical button that turns the device on and a 3.5mm audio jack for wired connectivity. Interestingly enough, all these features are located at the right earcup, while the left side doesn’t have anything going for itself.
Inside, the headset features 42mm dynamic drivers with eight microphones for active noise cancellation (ANC). You can tweak its overall performance and passthrough through the Sennheiser Smart Control app. The Momentum 5 Wireless supports Bluetooth 5.3 with dual-device connectivity. The device comes with a 700mAh battery, which can last up to 57 hours even with ANC on.
What’s Good About it?
There are plenty of things to like about the Momentum 5 Wireless, the biggest of them being the noise cancellation, passive and active. From the moment I wear the headphones, it immediately blocks out a good chunk of the environment, and I haven’t even turned it on yet. Once the headphones and their respective ANC features are turned on, they virtually shut out everything but the loudest noises, even more so when I’m playing music.
The transparency mode is also equally exceptional. At its maximum setting, it can let every outside sound in as if the headphones weren’t even there. This means I can have normal conversations with people without removing my headphones. That said, though they are rare, there are some occasional peaks when the eight microphones detect something is off. Of course, you can adjust the intensity of both the ANC and transparency modes in Sennheiser’s Smart Control Plus app.
Now, let’s talk about sound. Though it takes on the same shape as the HDB 630, the Momentum 5 Wireless is functionally bassier than its audiophile counterpart. Even in Sennheiser’s own neutral setting, I could still feel the headphones tremble in my ears due to their richer bass reproduction. This aspect was quite apparent while playing Games We Play’s “The End”, Florence + The Machine’s “King”, and Sleep Token’s “Gethsemane”. Though I wouldn’t view this as a bad thing, especially since it complements the midrange of the headphones — one of their best aspects when it comes to performance.
Despite that added emphasis on the low end, the bass never overpowers the mids, which is a major plus for me. The vocals in Evan Call’s “First Class Mage” felt jovial and outright uplifting through these headphones. Gerard Way’s voice still comes through whole and unmuddied amidst the crashing cymbals, deep bassline, and kicking snares in My Chemical Romance’s “The World Is Ugly”. That sentiment also applies to Hozier’s “Jackie And Wilson” and Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out”. And that’s not even talking about what you can do with the EQ settings.
As mentioned in our coverage, the Momentum 5 Wireless comes with an 8-band EQ setting that lets you fine-tune your preferred sound profile. However, I’m a bigger fan of the app’s Sound Personalisation feature, which has you take a test to generate your ideal sound.
While other audio equipment that relies on an app offers a similar feature, I believe Sennheiser has the best implementation I’ve tested so far, and it really shines with these headphones. If you’re interested, you can see my preferred settings in the images above. The one on the left is my personal preference, while the one on the right is what I found to be the ideal setting for critical listening.
Another major positive of the Momentum 5 Wireless is its long battery life. As mentioned earlier, Sennheiser claims that the headphones can deliver up to 57 hours of continuous playback on a single charge. While I didn’t use the headphones for two and a half days straight, I’m happy to report that they lasted almost a full week with on-and-off use, which really impressed me. The best part is that, in my testing, the battery was able to reach 100% with just a little over an hour of charging.
While I didn’t test this feature myself, I definitely appreciate the fact that Sennheiser has made the battery user-replaceable. That’s definitely a big plus for those who appreciate device longevity.
Next, we have the build itself, and I have to say that the Momentum 5 Wireless is surprisingly lightweight, despite its seemingly bulky appearance. Weighing in at just 290g, it sat neatly on my head without causing any major issues. If there was one source of discomfort, it would be how tightly the headphones clamp onto my head, but we’ll get into that in a bit. The padding is also really soft, which does help a lot, but that too isn’t perfect (again, more on that later).
The last positive I’d like to touch on is the included travel case. It has pretty much everything I’d want from a good carrying case: it’s rigid, has ample room for additional items, and features soft padding to protect the headphones. Another detail worth calling out is how slim it is. There’s no doubt in my mind that I could easily slip it into my backpack without having to rearrange the other items inside, which is quite a positive if I do say so myself.
What’s The Catch?
While the Momentum 5 Wireless is indeed a potent pair of headphones, there are still some things that I dislike about it. I encountered a few inconsistencies while daily driving the headphones. Firstly, I noticed that connection drops were far more frequent than with other headphones I’ve used before. There have been too many instances where the headphones would disconnect from my laptop and then play my music out loud for everyone in the office to hear. Needless to say, this was incredibly frustrating.
Volume is another area where I had some problems. There were a few occasions where the volume would sound either too soft or too loud while connected over Bluetooth. And, honestly, I can’t figure out the fix for it. Plugging it into a laptop or computer with the included 3.5mm jack immediately gives the headphones a massive bump in volume. Whether this is just a nitpick or a genuine issue depends on who you ask; it’s certainly something worth mentioning.
While I’ve highlighted how comfortable the headphones can be, this may vary from person to person. The earcups are indeed soft, but they are also quite shallow, especially for someone with bigger ears like mine. Add to that the fact that the headphones clamp down on your head quite tightly, and you might not find them particularly comfortable to wear for extended periods.
In a similar vein, I’m not particularly fond of the faux leather padding. While it has become standard on many headphones today, the padding on the Momentum 5 Wireless fell well short of my expectations, as it started peeling little after two weeks of typical use. Needless to say, this is both frustrating and disappointing, especially for a product positioned at such a premium price point. Honestly, I expected the materials to hold up better, given its cost of entry.
The controls come with their own set of issues as well. For starters, the Momentum 5 Wireless uses a single button to power the headphones on and off and activate pairing mode. This has resulted in a few awkward, albeit expected, moments where the headphones would simply shut down on me instead of entering pairing mode for a new device.
The touch controls are also a bit of a pain. While they work well enough, I don’t like the fact that I can’t customise them to suit my personal preferences. Though it’s quite a minor issue, It was still quite annoying.
Wear detection comes with its own set of quirks, for better or worse. While the feature generally works as intended, there were some occasions where it wouldn’t pause my music after I took the headphones off. Rarer still were the instances where the headphones would randomly start and pause playback for a few seconds after I put them back on before resuming normal playback.
Outside of continuous audio playback, call quality, both in terms of listening and speaking, is only so-so. During my testing, several of my friends and colleagues pointed out that they could still hear a fair amount of background noise while I was on a call. Meanwhile, being on the receiving end, the call volume was quite weak.
And finally, there’s the audio quality. While I largely praised the Momentum 5 Wireless for its overall sound, it does struggle when it comes to reproducing certain treble and high-frequency sounds. I used EmoCosine’s “Crystal Ribbon (Extended Smelting)” to test this, as the song is known for its extreme treble and high-frequency detail. In my testing, the treble sounded rather flat. Trying to push it further through EQ adjustments would also cause it to peak in my ears, to the point where it became uncomfortable to listen to. From that point on, I couldn’t unhear just how neutral the treble sounded.
Should I Buy it?
If you’re stepping into the world of premium headphones for the first time or are a long-time audio enthusiast, then the Momentum 5 Wireless is worth recommending. Priced at RM1,999, they are nowhere near affordable, but they offer exceptional performance in various departments, which, in my opinion, makes them a worthwhile investment. That said, their flaws, glaring or otherwise, are enough to hold these headphones back from perfection.
