The Sennheiser Momentum 5 is the new best everyday headphone

The Sennheiser Momentum 5 is a highly anticipated headphone. You can tell from all the clickbaity thumbnails currently springing up on YouTube, breathlessly calling it ‘OVERHYPED!!!!’, etc. This is because the previous Momentum 4, released in 2022, has long been championed as one of the best Bluetooth headphones on the market, particularly as its price has come down.

I love Sennheiser cans. The HDB 630 is my favorite headphone I’ve ever used for its stunning sound quality, and the Momentum 4 is the one I recommend to most people, simply because it offers such absurdly good value for money.

The Momentum 5 is essentially billed as a mix of the two, an upgraded Momentum 4 with HDB 630 features. I like the sound of that – let’s see if it matches reality.

Sound quality

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A word I used to describe the Momentum 4 was ‘easy’. You unbox them, stick ‘em on, and they sound good right out of the box. It’s not the kind of spectacular, luscious sound you’d get from the likes of the $1,699 DALI IO-12, but it’s good – and this is once again the case for the Momentum 5.

The overall sound is immediately likeable. It’s bright and detailed, with crisp separation of tones and an impressive level of precision. Listening to Seatbelts’ seminal soundtrack to Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (look, it’s my review, I’ll do what I want), I appreciated in particular how easy it was to appreciate all the details in the midrange – the taut drum hits sitting under the perky brass and over the top of the walking jazzy basslines. It’s not a sound that will make your jaw drop as soon as you put on the headphone, but it is very pleasant, and if this is your first pair of premium headphones, you’ll appreciate the difference right away.

The bass is warm and rich. It is perhaps a touch too prominent in the default mix – I’ve used headphones that were much more bass-bloated by default, so I don’t want to ding the Momentum 5 too heavily for this, but all the same, once I got my hands on the EQ (see the next section) I started to check that sub-bass a little.

Treble sounds too are bright and sparkling. You get that crispness of the upper register with lots of perceptible detail – I appreciated it for enjoying the flutes and pan-pipes in Seatbelts’ soundtrack. Again there’s an argument that the higher frequencies are a hair over-emphasised, and once again when I got to the EQ I reined them in just a touch.

I put the Momentum 5 through several more albums. The Raconteurs’ Consolers of the Lonely was crunchy and punchy; the bite of the guitars and muscle of the bass gave the faster songs a delightfully frenetic pace without the vocals ever getting lost in the mix. Rosalía’s LUX (anyone else still obsessed with that album?) was simply a stunner, its huge orchestral arrangements done brilliant justice by the well-separated midrange.

‘Easy listening’ is often a pejorative term in the music world. But the Sennheiser Momentum 5 makes for easy listening (complimentary). This isn’t the kind of headphone where after an hour or two you find yourself dizzy and shell-shocked and needing to take a break. This is the kind of headphone I could wear almost non-stop for two days without an issue. And in fact, I have basically done that.

Features

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The Momentum 5 features an upgraded ANC system with a completely new microphone array – Sennheiser says that the number of microphones dedicated to both noise-cancellation and transparency has doubled from the Momentum 4. In real terms, this means much better ANC than the Momentum 4, and even better ANC than my beloved HDB 630.

Tackling the great outdoors with the Momentum 5, I found that I could effectively shut out background noise of trains, buses and traffic. Using them in the same room that a call was happening also worked very well, with participants’ voices pleasantly muffled to oblivion. When I needed to hear what was going on, I could easily activate the very effective transparency mode.

I think the class-leaders in ANC – the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 – still have the edge in terms of sheer world-shunning power. But I also think we’ve reached a comfortable plateau in terms of ANC in premium headphones. It’s always very good, and comparing one headphone’s ANC to another is often an exercise in hair-splitting. Basically, if you want to know whether the Momentum 5’s ANC will handle your commute or your office, the answer is: yes. Comfortably.

In the Sennheiser Sound Control app, you have access to controls for features like ANC and transparency, as well as a selection of sound profiles and a new eight-band EQ for precise sound tailoring. It’s responsive and user-friendly, meaning if you’ve never EQ’d a pair of headphones before it can be a great way to get your feet wet. Just move the sliders until you like the sound – I found that pulling down the sub-bass a little to rein in the rumble and taking down the treble too produced a sound that was overall warmer and more balanced.

So let’s get to one of the most talked-about and unexpected features, and for me one of the best – the 700 mAh battery that’s user-replaceable! So not only do you get a generous cell that gives you up to 57 hours of listening per charge with ANC engaged, but a few years down the line when it has started to lose its capacity, you can swap it for a fresh one.

This is great. Brilliant. I love it. So much of the tech industry seems unwilling to engage with the reality that most people actually don’t want to replace their devices every year or two, and it’s great to see Sennheiser offering a path to greater longevity for the Momentum 5. A replaceable battery isn’t unique in over-ear Bluetooth headphones (Fender’s Mix headphone also offers it), but it’s rare enough to stand out, and makes the Momentum 5 feel like a sounder investment than many comparable pairs.

Value

The Sennheiser Momentum 5 comes with an RRP of $399 / £329, which is pretty much exactly what you would have expected. It’s pretty much in the middle of the premium headphone price brackets – cheaper than the higher-end HDB 630, about the same as the Sony WH-1000XM6.

Inevitably, I think its main competition is likely to be its predecessor, the Momentum 4, the very similar headphone that can currently be picked up for about half the price. This is the same problem that the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 has – that’s a great headphone, but hard to recommend when it’s only an iterative update on the still-available and cheaper Gen 1.

With that said, Sennheiser’s inclusion of the replaceable battery does give the Momentum 5 something that genuinely sets it apart from the Momentum 4. This, plus its readiness for Bluetooth 6.0, does allow you to make a case that buying a Momentum 5 is a more futureproof investment, and that it’s arguably worth the extra outlay for that reason.

Comfort & build

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In terms of the design of the headphone itself, no boats have been rocked nor wheels reinvented, and that is fine. The Momentum 5 looks extremely similar to both the Momentum 4 and the HDB 630, and that is a design that I have long enjoyed. It’s simple, understated and effective. Once again we have the padded headband with a textured fabric finish on top, and once again we have the smoothly rotating earcups on extendable arms that emerge from or retract into the headband for a snug fit.

It’s a non-folding design, but I don’t think that’s a problem here because of how small and tidy the Momentum 5 is to begin with. Compared to oversized monsters like the Apple AirPods Max 2, this feels like a headphone that stays out of your way. The cups are just about big enough for me; I wonder how I’d feel if my ears were larger. Once again we have a full suite of on-headphone controls, with tap and swipe gestures on the right earcup controlling play/pause, volume, transparency and track skip.

One thing I do want to shout out though is the case. It’s almost identical to the case for the Momentum 4, except for the clever addition of an indent on one side that functions as a handle. A small thing, but honestly brilliant! It makes the case so much easier to carry around and much more practical.

Should you buy?

The spectre of the cheaper Momentum 4 is definitely a factor here – and if you already own the Momentum 4, I don’t think you need to rush out and upgrade. With that said, I think the user-replaceable battery and the general raft of improvements on the Momentum 5 do make it in general a better investment, and I am very happy to recommend it as an excellent mid-range premium headphone. If you're looking for your first really good pair of cans, this is a good place to start.

Just like the Momentum 4, I don’t think there are many or even any things I would say the Momentum 5 is ‘best’ at. But it does everything very well, and the fact that it provides both a pleasing stock sound and an eight-band EQ makes it a crowd-pleasing choice for lots of different stripes of user.