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.

Design: the packaging of this product doesn’t feel like it’s $300 it’s very simplistic basic and almost zero protection. inside the box you get a USBA to USB C cord, a sets of different sizes of wings that’s optional to use also some ear tips and a small lanyard. but yeah the packing is not selling me. then we check out the main case for the sennheiser momentum sport, we see the case and honestly by this i’m not a fan of how it look, it’s a plastic type of case kinda have that rubber feeling to it and it catches dust lint from your outfit easily so kinda look dirty and I have to keep on cleaning it. one of the first thing I notice right away from the case was the charge port cover for USBC the rubber does not close at all so the rubber cover from the case is just hanging down and not protecting the USBC plug at all. and man I was kinda disappointed seeing that. but hey the case support wireless charging tho so that’s atleast a plus on my book. the earphone looks feels massive for my ear. and it feels heavy, maybe the whole round design doesn’t fit well for m. features: these earphones support Bluetooth 5.2, with 10mm drivers. it’s also dust resistant. multi connect functionality and noise canceling capabilities. its IP55 rated. it’s water resistant with body performance data, you have the ability to track your heart rate and body temperature using the ear sensors. definitely would recommend to install the sennheiser app to customize your earphone. the app alone is well done easy to navigate they also have presets that you can use and have the ability to manual adjust it. I love how you can see the heart rate and body temperature when using the app. experience: a perfect time for me to use test this momentum sport while I go for a run, I can still hear around with pass through and definitely the fit is what bothered me. in my personal experience I use the smallest wing tip they offer the momentum sport just doesn’t seem to work right on my ear. I felt like I was spending more time focusing to make sure it doesn’t fall off since these were not cheap earphones. but I have zero complaints when it comes to delivering some crisps audio quality on my end. i enjoy a great amount of bass and these sounded great with clear vocals but I would still mess around with the EQ it’s always nice to have the ability to do that. I did download the polar app for the body temperature feature to fully see some data. but I wish I could just view everything using the apple fitness app. majority of the time most runner would have an apple watch and they probably would rather keep up with their body temperature using an apple watch. having the sennheiser app and polar app it was a bit too much just to run this earphone. ofcourse polar app is optional but if you’re paying $300 for an earphone you want to atleast experience what it offers. conclusion: well again this is $300 product and i wish sennheiser would package this to feel more premium, im not a fan of the case. the rubber was not consistent of covering the USBC insert. I think it’s more of my issue about not being fully comfortable with the earphone.I was spending so much time while running to make sure it’s sitting right that it won’t fall off. momentum sport does offer some great app feature, with quality audio that I can enjoy. has great battery life. the design is alright. and I just don’t see these earphones on $300 dollar range. maybe $200 would been a perfect fit for this so watch for sale