Sennheiser - MOMENTUM Sport Earbuds - Olive

TLDR: Best Sport headphones, they are worth the heavy price. Hands down. I have been using the Jabra Elite Sport headphones for years and needed some new buds. I always had problems with them wiggling out even under just regular workouts, constantly adjusting while running. I've dreamed of Sport earbuds that gave me all the bells and whistles and ear fins. Behold the Momentum Sport. I can do all the box jumps I want, sprinting, plus handstand walks, and these stay rock solid. Very impressed with the fit, I put my gym headphones through more rigorous torture than most. I also have to give a huge shout-out to Sennheiser for their Smart Control App. For Android it's the best headphone app I've used. Major win is their connection management feature. With multipoint this allows you to pick any 2 devices for it to be connected to if you own many devices, super handy. Sound and ANC are top notch as well. They deliver a lowerful punch through an intense workout and are also incredibly clear listening to something lighter and more relaxing when stretching and cooling down. No one has complained about sound quality on calls which is great but that's not why I bought these, but it's great. Now here is where I give them 5 stars. The tap controls. Full transparency I prefer the physical buttons from Jabra. I love these tap controls though compared to their competitors, especially with how you can customize in the app. With the right tips, wings, and control setup these are the best fitness earbuds on the market. Attached photo is from doing handstand walks with earbuds not even budging.

PROS + Comfortable to use for long periods of time and with lots of movement (weight lifting, running, biking, etc.) + Battery life and overall playtime is great + Solid overall sound quality + Unique and useful software features (heart rate and body temp monitoring, ear fit assessment, sound check custom EQ presets, and custom sound zones) + Transparency mode is excellent with the semi-open design and software passthrough + Integrates with the Polar ecosystem of products if you own Polar devices + Responsive touch controls + Sennheiser Smart Control app is well designed, responsive, and easy to use. The earbuds integrate well with any other Sennheiser smart products you use with the app CONS - Touch sensitive controls are a bit too touch sensitive, even with the sensitivity adjusted, often leading to accidental triggering - Removable ear fins are not very secure and quickly fall off if an earbud is dropped - Case cover is a bit flimsy feeling and the case itself is on the large size SO-SO * Sound is a bit bass light out of the box, but can be improved with bass boost and EQ Adaptive ANC works pretty well despite the semi-open design, but isn’t going to blow you away with canceling ambient sounds * Overall max volume is loud enough in my use cases, but I can turn them up to 80-90% comfortably, which may not leave a lot of headroom for some folks THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT If you are an avid athlete and/or exercise enthusiast who likes to listen to music while you workout, then you know the challenges of finding the right pair of headphones or earbuds. Some get too hot, some don’t fit well, some don’t sound good, some are too heavy; it can be a trick to get everything right. The Sennheiser Momentum Sport earbuds do a good job of trying to ride this middle ground of features and performance, doing most things well, some things great, and a few things missed along the way. Overall though, I think these are a solid choice, if you are willing to pay the relatively higher premium for them. FIT & COMFORT In terms of size, fit, and comfort, I personally found these very comfortable for my uses. Even without the replaceable wings, these fit well in my ears when I used the right ear tips. The app has a fit evaluation feature that determines if the earbuds are a good fit in your ears with their current position and set-up, and I found this worked very well for getting the right ear tip size to create the proper seal in my ear. Once I had the right combination of ear tip and ear fin, the earbuds stayed securely in place and I had no issues with using them during activities or static for longer periods of time. The one issue I did have with the rubber ear fins is that they are not very secure when wrapped around the buds. They don’t hook onto anything, and instead rely on their tension to stay in place, which is fine when in my ear, but when I would set the buds down or drop them, the fins would often pop off very easily. I wish there has been a simple hook system to make them more secure from falling off. But overall earbud comfort is great. SOUND QUALITY In terms of audio quality, I think these sound very good for what they are, but I wouldn’t say they blow me away for their price. They are not audiophile levels of quality, even for earbuds, but they also have a very neutral sound signature that I like. The mids are very present, with no harsh treble or highs. I do think the low-end is missing a bit for my liking, but enabling bass boost did help, along with some minor EQ tweaks. You can tune these well to your liking, but I think most people will find these perfectly fine out of the box. Again, they didn’t blow me away with sound performance, but they also sounded much better than alternatives I have heard. They are very good for long listening sessions. You do get support for Bluetooth 5.2 and AAC, which is great for hi-res audio support over Bluetooth. SOFTWARE The Sennheiser Smart Control app that you use to update firmware, adjust EQ, run the fit assessment, and more is very good in my opinion. It takes a little bit to connect to the earbuds (~5 seconds or so), but once done the app is very responsive, looks good, and has all of the controls you could want. You can play around with the ANC and transparency settings, in addition to all of the things you would expect like remapping the touch controls to different functions. Speaking of these, I found the Adaptive ANC to be serviceable, definitely deafening sounds, although not class leading. However, with ANC engaged, or the custom “Anti Wind” mode engaged, and music playing I did find it did exactly what it needed to do by dropping ambient sounds and fully engaging me in the music. Likewise, I heard no degradation in audio quality between the modes, which was great. The transparency mode on the other hand was really fantastic I thought. These are a semi-open designed earbud, so while that hinders full noise canceling, it helps a lot with awareness of the environment. I found the transparency mode very natural sounding, and did a great job of letting in surrounding sounds and mixing them with audio I had playing. For the touch sensitive controls, they are very responsive, but too sensitive, which I am hoping can be adjusted with firmware. If I reach up to adjust them while working out, or remove them from my ears, it would often trigger a response accidentally like changing the sound mode or volume on my music. You can adjust the sensitivity in the app, but in my case even the lowest level was a bit too sensitive for my liking. On the health side, these do measure your heart rate and body temperature, which you can view in the app. I found both of these lined up well with my other fitness tracker I use, and if you have Polar devices, these can be linked up for more comprehensive health tracking. If you don’t have a dedicated fitness tracker, then these provide some nice built-in tracking for things like heart rate, which is a nice feature, but far from “essential” I think. CASE & BATTERY The battery life is great, quoted at 24 hours of total playtime (6 hrs earbuds + 18.5 hrs case), which I haven’t been able to fully stress test to the max, but is very believable from my use. It has fast charging capability, which is great, and in general, longevity should not be an issue with these. You can also use a setting in the app to slow the charging speed a bit, to increase the lifespan of the battery, which is also a nice touch. The case itself is solid. It is a bit on the large size for the size of the earbuds, and has a somewhat flimsy feeling cover that has a soft hinge which magnetically attaches the lid to the case. It does the job, and looks good, but I do wish it was a bit smaller and felt a bit more sturdy when it came to the lid. Not a deal breaker by any means, but a nitpick nonetheless.

What They Come With Inside the box you will find the earbuds, a carrying/charging case, earbud tips, earfins, a short USB-C to USB-A charging cord, a strap for the carrying case, and instructions. Set-up The set-up was really easy. Start with charging the earbuds. Pair the earbuds with your phone. These use Bluetooth connectivity, and paired really easily for me. There’s a Sennheiser Smart Control app to download for more control of the headphones. Upon establishing an app connection you will need to download any available firmware updates. You can customize the earbuds by changing the size of the eartips for the comfort of your ear. Also, there are earfins that you can slide on. I didn’t find the earfins very comfortable of helpful. Use the app to adjust other settings for the earbuds. Quality The earbuds have a solid build to them. It’s to the point where they feel a little heavy. There’s a carry/charging case with these earbuds. It’s quite a bit larger than the cases for other earbuds that I have used or seen. Quality-wise the case is good except for the hinge side of the case. It’s a flimsy feeling material that I would expect to tear over time. I feel like I need to baby that when I open it. Comfort These are not that comfortable to me due to the size and weight of the earbud. Adjusting the eartips can help some with that. I do not like the earfins. Special Features The Momentum Sport earbuds are designed for active people and have a couple of extra features: Heart Rate Monitor – These will measure your heart rate while wearing both earbuds. There’s a problem with that for me as I may only wear one earbud while walking so that I can be more aware of what is going on around me. The heart rate monitor only works with both in. Temperature Monitor – These also measure your temperature. One catch to using these features is that you need a Polar account. If you don’t already have one, you’d have to sign up for another account to use these features. It’s not built in to the Sennheiser app that you download. Water Resistance – This is also mentioned as a sporty feature. Other than sweat I have not put these in contact with any water, so I do not know how water resistant these are. The package says IP55 splash resistant. Audio Quality The sound quality is clear. I wouldn’t say that it’s stunning, but it’s solid compared to other earbuds I have used. There are controls in the app to help customize the sound quality. One odd sound issue with these is that there’s a clicking noise when nothing is playing. I’m guessing that it’s the monitoring feature possibly. Seems like this shouldn’t happen. Controls The controls for the Momentum Sport are not good. The touch controls are way too sensitive. I can’t adjust the earbuds without changing my volume, track, or noise cancellation. And when these are designed for an active person, you should expect for people to stop and adjust the earbuds. Overall These earbuds are just okay. While they do have a good sound quality and boast some sporty features, I find them a little too heavy and hard to control. The over-sensitive touch controls make this a hard product to use in active scenarios, and that’s the target audience for these. For me the Momentum Sport earbuds get just barely a 3 star rating.

Sennheiser has been an outstanding brand in home audio with their excellent pedigree with headphones used for music and personal computing and the Momentum Sport true wireless earbuds are another product that solidifies that reputation. The Momentum Sport are well-built, quality feeling ear buds with 4 contact charging pads and a LED indicator on each earbud. There are no physical buttons or parts of the earbud that depress for functionality, it is all capacitive touch and sensor interactions that control the function of the earbuds. They are slightly larger and heavier than a pair of competing earbuds in a similar price range and smaller and lighter than the PowerBeats Pro they will be replacing. Battery life is good at around 4-5 hours playing music continuously while lasting most of the day with mixed use for phone calls and some music mixed in. Another interesting feature of the Momentum Sport earbuds is that they also have some health monitoring capabilities like heart rate and body temperature, which can be checked in the Sennheiser Smart Control App. The left ear bud has the sensors for heart rate and bpm and the app will tell you to insert the left ear to get those readings. The App allows you to manage connections to your earbuds and it says clearly it supports Bluetooth MultiPoint, which allows you to connect to two BT devices simultaneously, like a SmartPhone and a laptop/PC at the same time. That way, if you are listening to music and take a call on your phone or laptop, it'll switch to the call and mute the other source. Similarly, if you are listening to something on your laptop/PC and take a call on your PC or your phone, it'll pause/mute your other source for the call on your phone. This all worked seamlessly and worked well in practice switching between sources without having to manually switch between devices on the laptop or on my iPhone. There's other neat aspects to the app, such as the ability to conduct a Fit Test, which uses a combo fo the sensors and the external microphone to test how much noise leakage there is to come to a fit score. I got a score of Good and the earbuds were very comfortable for me in both my ear canal and the outer ear where the body of the earbuds rest. The "wings" however were useless for me so your mileage may vary. Mine pointed out too far outward and not under the top lobe of my ear. Installing those are rather simple, there's 2 letters on each silicone wing - first letter is which earbud and second letter is the size. So RS would be Right Small, LL would be Left Large etc. Remove the "blank" ring and there's a little notch key showing the top of the earbud and install the wing you want to use and align the notch/tooth again. The app also lets you set the Active Noise Cancelling levels which I found to be very good. You can have full ANC which blocks out sound, and you can also set a level of transparency which allows some ambient/outside noise to passthrough, which is good if you are on the phone call or talking to someone so you don't sound like you're shouting. There's also Anti-Wind which blocks wind noise but still allows some ambient noise between ANC and Transparency mode. In terms of sound, Sennheiser doesn't disappoint with the Momentum Sport. Very clean sound especially treble, midrange and upper notes. Bass as is typical with earbuds isn't the best, slightly muffled and not as punchy and responsive as full headphones or home speakers but Bass is still pretty good for true wireless earbuds. There's a Bass preset in the app and honestly there's not a ton of difference between toggling it on or off. My main disappointment is with the capacitive touch controls. The Smart Control app has diagrams showing the touch controls and the taps don't see that great in terms of responsiveness. I don't think it confidently starts/stops music and I also did not see a command to swap inputs. You can stop playback and then start playback on the device and the Momentum Sport will then play that source but it would be nice if they had a manual switch option and then the ability to tap the earbud once to play. Hopefully future firmware updates clean this up. The case is definitely larger than other True wireless earbuds like Jabra Elite or Apple Airpods Pro, but it is considerably smaller than the PowerBeats Pro I am replacing, probably about 65% of the size and thinner too. The case is rigid with a soft touch feel and definitely has premium vibes, but it has a little rubber membrane holding the clamshell design together with a magnet fastener. This could be a long-term failure point for something that is supposed to be rugged for sport. So far I've used the Momentum Sport mowing the lawn, walking the neighborhood, at work and at the pool. These are water resistant, not water proof, and so far they have held up great with just water splashing but not submerged which is how I plan to use them. I can listen to music and take calls while watching the kiddos at the pool. BT connectivity is great and I had no issues with signal with clear line of sight at 45 feet. Highly recommend the Momentum Sport earbuds, but I'm hoping they simplify and clean up the touch commands. I think part of the issue they have is there is a light touch method of controlling the earbuds for when they are partially covered, but in those cases I would still use my voice assistant like Siri.

SOUND Outstanding sound quality in all formats. The bass reaches deep, yet is precise and melodic. Vocals come through with a natural clarity and the highs never get shrill. Even at unhealthy, elevated volumes the sound keeps its composure, imaging, and balance. I put them through their paces with everything from Tool, Metro Boomin, Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny, Ayra Starr, Metallica, Rae Sremmurd, Toni Braxton, Teddy Swims, Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, and even Pavarotti. There is not one track or genre where it felt flat or overmatched. I was especially impressed with how it handled the hard charging guitar and drums in Tool’s “The Pot”. How it keeps the midbass snappy while also rumbling in the lower bass notes without losing composure is wonderfully impressive. Next up were the island beats of Arya Starr’s “Commas” which is less of a torture test, but it’s notable how the natural tenderness in her voice comes through. There isn’t one track where they performed poorly, and at this price range with the Sennheiser badge on it, they should! They’ve made some of the best headphones for decades and the Momentum Sport earbuds live up to the reputation. ANC The Active Noise Canceling works great and has an especially clear “transparency” feature that lets you listen to what’s going on around you without removing the earbuds. There’s also an anti-wind ANC mode, which is OK, but I only use it on very windy days because I feel like it compromises the sound quality a bit. Then again, it’s better than dealing with wind noise, so at least it’s effective when needed. Full ANC isn’t going to remove all of the background noise to complete silence, but it will dull them to a whisper that’s easily drowned out by anything you’re playing. FIT Excellent fit for me, but like all earbuds your experience is going to vary. To accommodate for this, Sennheiser includes 3 different sizes of ear “wings” and ear cushions. The wings kind of hook onto a curve of your earlobe while the cushion obviously goes in your ear canal. I was fortunate to find a setup that fit me well which is key to both good sound quality and actually staying in your ear. The earbuds themselves are small but have a bulbous feel which was kind of odd figuring out how they were supposed to fit in my ear (putting them in and twisting rearward works for me). However, once in they stayed put and I haven’t had an issue with them coming loose or falling out while walking, working, or lightly jogging. HEALTH FEATURES Heart rate and body temperature sensors…. Whaaa???? This is where things get really interesting, because I’ve never even heard of these features on headphones before. I honestly thought it was gimmicky at first, but Sennheiser might be onto something. Keeping track of our body temperature and heart rate while working out can help prevent overdoing it to dangerous levels, especially as the Summer heat hits. And as earbuds, they have the advantage of fitting into the ear canal (where physicians take temps) so why not track those readings? It’s also an excellent area to measure the pulse considering the arteries near our ears. There’s a disclaimer about the sensor’s medical accuracy, but that’s also the same with just about every fitness monitor on the market. If anything, I think measuring heart rate from the ear canal would provide more accurate results than from the wrist, but I need to test it out more to compare the results against my other fitness trackers. The health sensors are only in the left earbud, so if you’re often wearing only one of them, you can still track your readings. What’s also useful is how the sensors integrate with the Polar Flow app, which also integrates with Google Fit so it automatically tracks my workouts and how I’m physically doing. With the Polar Flow app synced to these headphones and my phone, I can set a walking or running workout and it’ll track my route, distance, pace, heart rate, and body temps. And since they’re IP55 rated, you can have peace of mind that they’ll hold up to heavy sweating, dust, and splashes. VERDICT Great job on being innovative with earbuds and health, Sennheiser! If music fidelity or fitness tracking is your thing, or if you just want good earbuds that stay put, I highly recommend the Sennheiser Momentum sport earbuds. Fit is obviously going to vary, but the variety of tips and wings should accommodate most ears. The sound quality is top notch and should satisfy everyone from the timbre critical sound snobs to the bassheads. They’re comfortable, stay put, and are easy to set up. If these are within your budget, I highly recommend them. PROS - Outstanding sound quality - Deep melodic bass - Natural vocals - Sound holds composure at high volumes - Comfortable to wear - Stays put in ear - High resolution aptX and AAC lossless audio codec - Heart rate and body temperature monitor - Integration with Polar Flow (syncs with Google Fit) - Excellent ANC noise reduction and transparency modes - Smart Control app tailored sound adjustments - IP55 splash/dust resistance - Wireless charging case - 5.5 hour battery life, 24 hrs with case recharge - Battery preservation option in app CONS - Case is bulky