Discovering Great Sound: A Review of Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4

After just a few days of trying out Sennheiser’s new Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds, it’s pretty obvious they’re a big step up from the last ones. While they haven’t changed much in looks or sound, Sennheiser made some important tweaks behind the scenes to fix the connection problems and bugs that bugged us before. Even though they now cost $50 more at $299.95, they still sound amazing. And they’ve got cool new features that’ll keep them up-to-date for a long time. What’s really interesting is that they’re not jumping on the spatial audio bandwagon like other earbuds in their class.

This is Sennheiser, so let’s just get right to the sound. If you’re coming from the Momentum True Wireless 3, the listening experience of these earbuds will be familiar. The detail, warmth, and impressive soundstage that Sennheiser fans have come to expect are all accounted for. In “I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves, the acoustic guitar has just the right amount of crunch and timbre, and the MTW4 bring out the strengths in each of their voices. Jumping over to the 2023 remix of the Beatles’ red album, you’ll find plenty of rumble in the bass during tracks like “I Saw Her Standing There” without any treble harshness on the earliest recordings. 

Sennheiser’s adaptive noise cancellation analyzes your environment to apply the right level of ANC on the fly, and while it can’t match up with class leader Bose, it was more than enough to help me tune out a crowded subway car and enjoy my music. Similarly, the company’s transparency mode isn’t at the level of Apple, but it sounds pleasingly natural and serves its purpose just fine. Through the company’s mobile app, you can also set location-specific “zone” preferences, so if you want regular ANC at your favorite coffee shop but need some transparency mixed in at the office, you can do that. 

Aside from a new copper color option, the Momentum True Wireless 4 look identical to the Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds. You now get a fourth (extra-small) set of silicone ear tips, and Sennheiser still includes three sets of stabilizer arcs in the box for an extra-secure fit. But there are much bigger changes within the buds themselves, including a redesigned antenna and a fully overhauled wireless / Bluetooth technology stack that, in my experience, has made them work reliably and consistently. They’re fast to connect to my phone, and the frustrations I had with the Sennheiser Smart Control app on iOS and Android occasionally failing to recognize the earbuds are completely gone. Sennheiser also intelligently prioritizes whichever bud is closest to your phone to maintain the connection between the two, meaning there’s a much lower chance of brief audio dropouts. 

Sennheiser includes four sizes of ear tips and three sets of silicone arcs.

The company has made a substantial effort to futureproof these $300 buds for the next several years: they’re Bluetooth 5.4-compliant, and a firmware update due in early spring will enable LE Audio and Auracast. More relevant for those hell-bent on the best audio quality is that the MTW4 feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound technology. That’ll prove beneficial if you own a recent flagship-level Android phone with a Qualcomm processor inside because you’ll be able to stream what Sennheiser claims is “flawless bit-by-bit” lossless audio from your phone to the earbuds — as long as your chosen music service offers it.

Sennheiser has really focused on improving the earbuds for voice calls. They’ve added a six-microphone array and their latest AI voice processing technology to help cut out background noise and make your voice clearer during calls. Usually, I’d opt for wired buds or just the earpiece for important calls, but these earbuds definitely do better than Sennheiser’s past models when it comes to isolating your voice.

It’s still too early to say for sure if Sennheiser nailed it this time, but that’s the feeling I’ve been getting while testing the Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds. The sound is still fantastic, and they’ve fixed the glitches and issues from previous models. Plus, they’re packed with the latest Bluetooth tech you can get in 2024. I’ll be keeping an eye on forums like Reddit to make sure there aren’t any hardware problems cropping up. But if you were disappointed by the MTW3, these earbuds feel like Sennheiser’s way of making things right.