Sennheiser - MOMENTUM True Wireless 2 Noise Cancelling Earbud Headphones - Black

This is my first pair of Sennheiser earphones and I am impressed. I'm not an audiophile, but I do love my music. The ultimate test for me with new earphones is if you put them on and listen to a song you have listened to 100x before, do you go WOW and feel like you have never heard the song before. With the Sennheiser Momentum 2 it was the first time, in a long time, that I has WOW moments. The channel separation and mixing was so clear that it was like I could pick out the layers of each and every instrument. That's amazing. In terms of the more routine use, call and voice quality. No complaints from me or the people i was talking to. You can use just one earpiece at a time, so I love that. I'll talk about call controls later. Noise Cancellation. Superb. At the right volume it drowned out all background noise. There is also none of that weird air pressure feel that I have experienced with headphones from that famous headphone company starting with B. Sennheiser have really outperformed with noise cancelling. Comfort. The Momentum 2's are very comfortable. They fit almost flat to your ear, so it's not obvious you are wearing them and there's no stupid stalk like other headphones.The feel safer, more comfortable, and less intrusive that other headphones. Pairing. Pairing was straight forward. I changed the case first. Should note, the case uses USB C (Thank you Sennheiser for getting with the future!). You put both headphones in, touch the buttons on the side and you can pair in a few seconds. Pairing instruction and tones are spoken in English, and yes, you can change the language in the app. The App - is my only complaint and I deducted 1 store for possibly a trivial reason. The app is free, works great, but there's no other equalizer presets included. You can add and save your own presets, but outside of Neutral you have to fiddle with the qualizer yourself and it's a non-intuitive equalizer control. Also, FYI, you can adjust the touch controls on each side of the Momentum 2s using the App. The default controls were not intuitive to me, but kudos to Sennheiser for letting people customize them. In the box: Momentum 2s, USB C cable, and some instructions. I have attached a photo with a quarter in the box so you can get a sense for the relative size of the Momentum 2s and case. The description/photo on Best Buy makes them seem huge and they're not. They're compact and nice. Finally, a confession I owned the original headphones from a fruit company (not he noise-cancelling ones) and the stupid case was too slick and smooth and flew out of my jacket one day and was lost forever. So I vowed never to buy the fruit company headphones again because of that case design flaw. i LOVE the Sennheiser case, it's got a texture fabric feel, so it's easy to hold, sturdy, and I don't feel like I am doing microsurgery whenever I open to put the Momentum 2s in or out. Thank you Sennheiser for making a great product.

I'm just going to jump right in here. I'm listening to music on these as I write this review, and the quality of sound is impressive. Granted, this is my first experience with true wireless earbuds, but they're far superior to any other bluetooth earbuds I've used in the past. They honestly rival my favored set of wired, over-the-ear monitors. The default "Neutral" equalizer preset (the only one it has) has a somewhat muddy sound, but after a few minutes of tinkering with the app, I was able to reach a balance that works extremely well for my ears. The noise-cancelling and passthrough functions work very well. I'm typing on a relatively noisy mechanical keyboard and even at a lower volume level, I'm unable to hear it with the noise cancelling on, while it comes in clearly with passthrough on. Passthrough has two modes (audio on or audio mute) which can be changed in the app. You control most of the earbuds' functions by tapping on the left or right earbud. You can play/pause, skip/previous track, accept/reject calls, activate voice controls (if you're connected to a phone) and control the volume. These are done by single, double, and triple tapping on a specific earbud, or touching and holding your finger to them. This method isn't at all intuitive, and I've had to reference the instructions several times to refresh myself, but I can't fathom a better way to control the earbuds without a cord, remote, or app. I'm sure I'll memorize them eventually. The included charging case is covered in an attractive grey cloth with a nice texture. It's light but has enough weight to feel premium, and the ports that seat the earbuds are magnetic, so it's easy to make sure you've got them inserted properly. The lid is also magnetic and has just the right amount of pull to keep it from accidentally opening if you toss it into a bag, but still opens smoothly without effort. They fit me very well out of the box, and I could see myself wearing them four hours on end if I wanted. Four sizes of earpads are included to help you find the right fit. They feel secure in my ears and I'm confident I could engage in a vigorous workout with no danger of them falling out. If I have a complaint, it's the companion app. The app serves several useful purposes, and is pretty much required. It's how you update the device firmware, and change the way the earbuds behave (automatically answering a call when removing them from their case, for example). It's where you can switch the passthrough mode as I mentioned earlier. It's also where the equalizer lives, and you're going to want that. The equalizer itself is unlike any I've ever experienced, and leaves much to be desired. It comes with one singular preset (you're able to add more, and name them as you please), and instead of being able to adjust various ranges of the equalizer individually, you're given an extremely unintuitive X/Y-style slider that I still don't fully comprehend (screenshot attached). You basically move a dot around a strange +/- treble/bass field looking for the sound you want. I eventually stumbled across something that worked, but I couldn't tell you how to replicate it. For a product that appears to be doing it's best to cater to audiophiles, it's an odd decision. Hopefully they'll improve this function of the app in the near future. All in all, these are a fantastic pair of earbuds with an excellent range of sound, and I'd recommend them to anyone.

Sennheiser - MOMENTUM True Wireless 2 Noise-Cancelling Earbud Headphones I’ve always had a cynical approach to earbuds, whether they were the wired type from the early 2000s or the wireless types of recent years, they all had one basic common trait which was that they either never stayed in my ears or they delivered a sound that felt compromised. I eventually got wireless neckband earbuds. It’s served me as well, allowing me to go for my morning runs and do other outdoor activities. But, I always had to deal with the neckband always sliding around my neck if I moved too much or I would suddenly feel the neckband dangling at the back of my neck because it ‘fell’ off and was being held by the earbuds that it was connected to. In the past year, I had seen the progress true wireless earbuds but I was always hesitant because I didn’t want to deal with the buds falling out within 50ft of my morning run or having one fall out of an ear all because I did a simple turn of the head. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself gushing over a set of Earbud Headphones like I am with the Sennheiser- Momentum True Wireless 2! Ready To Go: The Momentum 2 is ready to be easily paired with your device as soon as you take the Earbuds out of the box. Within two minutes, my phone was paired and I was listening to music. There wasn’t any of that ‘holding’ down a button and waiting for a notification to pop up on the screen. And let me tell you that as soon as I hear the friendly voice say, “connected”, I had a feeling that these Earbuds were going to be different from the others that I have owned in the past. The Sound: The Momentum 2 comes with four earbud sizes which are: Large, Medium, Small and X-Small. You’re going to find that these gently fit into your ears and not feel like someone is shoving their uncomfortable fingers in your ears where all you can hear is your own breathing. These are truly comfortable, allowing your ears to ‘breathe’ as it were. I honestly didn’t think Earbuds were capable of delivering astonishing sound as the Momentum 2 does. This kind of rich sound is something that I had only experienced with my large over the ears noise-canceling wireless headset. In fact, I am going to state that the Momentum 2 Earbuds do a better job at delivering sound compared to my once favorite over the ear headset. I listen to a lot of EDM (electronic dance music), Grimes and some rock. It felt as if I was hearing these groups for the first time because of the rich, crisp and detailed sound coming out from these Earbuds! I then decided to watch a couple of movies and some shows using the Momentum 2 Earbuds. Again, I was impressed with the level of detail that I was hearing as I watched The Dark Knight and John Wick. You can almost feel every punch or crunching of metal as the rain pours down in the background of those scenes. I watched a couple of episodes of Westworld and the dialogue was sharper than I had ever heard before with my previous earbuds. Then came the true moment of truth when I went for my run. The Momentum 2 earbuds STAYED IN MY EARS! There wasn’t any need for me to adjust or constantly worry that they would fall out at any moment of impact of my running. I even did a head-shaking test and the earbuds never came close to falling out of my ears whereas my neckband earbuds would have either fallen out or my neckband would’ve been hanging sideways off of my neck. Ease of Access: Previous wireless headsets required me to memorize buttons or sensors that would usually have me pressing the wrong function. It was frustrating and tiresome. With the Momentum 2, there aren’t any buttons to ‘feel’ for. Each earbud has its own function(s). for example; the Left bud will Pause/Play, control Volume down, skip a track or go to previous track all by tapping the earbud. Tapping the Right earbud will access voice assistance, increase volume or activate/deactivate the Transparent Hearing function. It’s incredibly easy. And if you download the Smart Control app, you will be allowed to not only customize the equalizer but you can also customize the earbud controls. Another cool feature of the Momentum is that when you remove one of the earbuds, the music pauses. And when you place the earbud back into your ear, the music will resume. I mentioned Transparent Hearing which, when turned on, allows the user to hear the surrounding noises which are good if you’re out in public and might need to be aware of sudden dangers. When the Noise Cancelling function is activated, you are allowed to be in ‘the moment’ of whatever you are enjoying (assuming that you are in a safe environment). Maintaining the Momentum 2 earbuds is simple. The Momentum 2 provides a small and efficient charging case. I really like that the case has a magnetic pull for each earbud and pulls them into their appropriate slot. The case will recharge the earbuds when placed and the case itself seems to have a VERY LONG charge life from what I have observed. The case comes with a micro USB cord. Just plug it into your USB port on your computer or phone/device charger and you’re good. I have only made a couple of calls using the earbuds and I didn’t notice any issues. I could hear the persons on the other end and they could hear me easily. I am extremely happy owning the Momentum 2 earbuds because they fit, they deliver theater-quality sound and possess a smooth style that you can’t help but admire.

The Sennheiser - MOMENTUM True Wireless 2 Noise Cancelling Earbud Headphones - Black offers incredible sound quality with several customizable user controls built in. Each earbud has 3-level touch controls which allow total control over the user's listening experience. My experience with in-ear earbud headphones is broad. I have used several brands over the years and truly love the quality of these Sennheisers. They were comfortable in the ear, which I have struggled with other brands in this area. The noise-cancelling feature are good but not overwhelming (the underwater feeling). The ability to wear them and hear through to the ambient sounds is great. The battery life is outstanding compared to other brands. I have only charged the case one in a week, but have used the earbuds well over 5 hours straight per day. The adjustable/interchangeable ear pieces was nice as the factory size was too big and put pressure on my ear canals. The smaller size was perfect and comfortable! PROS - Sennheiser brand and quality!! A+ - Quality build and feel - Splash resistant - Customizable User Controls - App is easy to use and edit settings - Battery life is top of the industry CONS - Not a fan of the textile feel to the case. Unlike plastic/rubberized cases of competitors, this one would be hard to clean if it got spilled on - The Bass, Mids, Highs options in the app are very limited. I like the ability to control each setting independently, but the app is more of a fluid selection process. These are must have for music heads, business professionals who are on calls all day long - in the car or office, and anyone who wants top quality sound from a minimal sized earbud!

This ear buds look sleek. Charging case is a cloth so try not to get it dirty. Charging is easy and quick. I suggest doing so over night. They come with different size earbud rubber so make sure you have the right size before you set them in your ear, this will make for a comfortable wear. Pairing them is easy just hurt and hold both earbuds for three seconds and find momentum TW2 on your device. Tapping the sides of the earbud provides touch control which is really cool you just have to remember the sequences. You can except a call or reject the call and we’re talking on the phone you hear the person clearly based on my conversation they could hear me clearly as well. The sounds quality is good as well. Nice bass!!!

Some technical info regarding what was used during my testing for this review: Phone: Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ OS: Android 10 ===Pros=== -Excellent sound for true wireless earbuds -Relatively small for true wireless earbuds that have active noise cancelling -All touch controls are customizable through app (*EXCEPT* for controls during calls) -Touch controls have audio cues -USB-C -Magnetic case and earbuds -Good bluetooth range ===Cons=== -Poor value for the price -[ANDROID] Mediocre battery life on Android devices that support aptX -Battery reporting from the earbuds is highly inaccurate -Mediocre call quality (sounds muffled), can sound distorted when the mic is obstructed -Groove on earbuds easily collects dirt over time [SOUND] The sound is probably the best I’ve heard with true wireless and tethered wireless earbuds. It never sounds muddy to me while having responsive bass. I’m not much of an audiophile or have any expertise in the audio field to describe what I’m hearing to give it justice but I think the best way I can put it is that they have a very neutral sound out of the box and sound the most accurate of out all the wireless earbuds I’ve used before. I can easily use the Equalizer to pump more bass or treble as I see fit though the range I can set it to is admittedly tighter. I can’t get the exaggerated/excessive bass that’s like booming from your car stereo when playing bass-heavy hip hop if I wanted to. But I can get to thumping levels where it wasn’t so much out of the box. So the booming bass is with these buds if you want it. It just won’t kick your ear drums like another earbud I’ve tried. Also worth noting is that the maximum volume of the MOMENTUM True Wireless 2 is lower than the average wireless headphone I’ve tried. If I had to guess I would say the max volume feels about 15% lower than the competition’s max volume. So what I mean is, if you set your volume to 100% on the MOMENTUM True Wireless 2, you can get that same volume of sound on most other headphones, including earbuds, at 85%. Will that matter to you? Maybe not. I’ve been able to compensate this so far by raising the volume. The problem may lie with lower volume recordings, like say a movie where they’re whispering in a hall, or some ASMR videos on YouTube. You may be one of those people in the comments complaining about the volume being too low when everyone else is saying they’re not having that problem. It’s your earbuds. [ACTIVE NOISE CANCELLING or ANC] I still own full-size over ear noise cancelling headphones. When I compared that to the MTW2 inside my apartment, the MTW2 did a better job blocking out my computer’s fan noise and my TV. It didn’t silence them because I still heard them. But it dulled the sound, and did a better job than my over-ear headphone. But when I went outside to test, to my surprise, it was different. I live in Brooklyn, New York, one of the 5 boroughs of New York City. I live 1 block away from an above-ground subway line (The Q/B lines). There is no short supply of noise in my neighborhood. The MTW2 couldn’t block out the subway noise to my liking. Nor did it block out the bus and truck rumblings when I was nearby by them as they passed by me. The whole time I was wondering if I actually had noise cancelling on or not, so I kept triple-pressing my right earbud back and forth to hear the difference between ANC on and ANC off. The MTW2 is already aided by the benefit of being an in-ear earbuds so it has passive noise cancellation via sound isolation, provided you get a good tight fit. You’ll want a tight fit for the best sound anyway. But it didn’t matter. The ANC didn’t do that much better of a job than my sound isolation only earbuds of another brand. Here’s the thing though: You can tune out the background noise when you have music playing at a certain volume. The default 60% on my phone does a good job, and of course the higher the more effective. But you’re only drowning out the outside noise with your music. That’s not the ANC doing its job. When I’m listening to sports talk radio at the same volume (60%) that’s when the actual effectiveness of the ANC was exposed. It wasn’t much more effective than my other in-ear earbuds that were smaller and lighter with no ANC. [BATTERY LIFE] I was NEVER able to get the 7-hour claimed battery life in my tests. Volume was played at 60% through all tests. aptX with ANC: About 4 to 4.3 hours aptX without ANC: About 4.5 to 4.75 hours AAC with ANC: About 5.3 hours AAC without ANC: About 6.5 hours This was interesting to test because Apple’s iOS does NOT support aptX. So the earbuds will always stream with AAC by default. So theoretically, Apple devices won’t ever need to worry about battery life dramatically outside of Sennheiser’s claim. 6.5 hours with ANC off, is close to 7 hours. Perhaps at a volume lower than 60%, 7 hours can be done. Android devices are a whole different story. If your device supports aptX typically it will choose it by default. I can’t say for certain that this is the behavior across all Android devices, but I can confirm this with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6. The average user is not going to know how to change the codec to AAC, which is to unlock the hidden by default Developer options menu then change the Bluetooth codec to AAC. Even then, this setting does not save. The moment you turn your MTW2 off or disconnect it from the device, your Android device will forget that setting. The next time it connects to your phone it will default to aptX again. Charging the battery takes roughly 1 hour to charge from 0% to 100%. [CASE] The case is the largest true wireless earbud case but it is still pocketable. It uses USB-C to charge. I got 3 full charges of 0% to 100%. On my 4th attempt, it only charged up to 80% before it stopped charging the earbuds entirely. The case looks very attractive although I have some concern about the case’s material. It uses a cloth/fabric type of material. I’m worried this type of material will soak up oils easily and be harder to clean. The case locks itself with magnets, which never are in danger of accidentally opening itself. The buds themselves also have magnets that allow it to clasp on to the case and keeping them attached, even when I held the case upside-down while open and aggressively tried to shake them out. [APP] You can change all of the touch controls functions as you see fit EXCEPT for the touch controls for call functions. It also lets you disable touch controls which is convenient, but also annoying in that it doesn’t follow through this concept all the way. You can disable touch but you’ll still hear the audio cues when you touch your earbud’s control pad even though they don’t do anything. The EQ doesn’t allow you to configure it by each frequency response, like most EQs. Instead you’re given an X/Y graph based on bass/treble levels (x-axis) vs high/low (y-axis). This makes it difficult for experienced audio users to configure mids to the way they want it to sound. I get what Sennheiser is trying to accomplish though. Their idea is simplifying the process of finding the sound you’re looking for by playing your music, then moving the target point on their EQ until the you find the sound you want. Oh, there are also NO EQ presets besides the neutral/flat out of the box setting, “Default”. But perhaps what I’ve found to be the most annoying thing about the app is that it almost always doesn’t stay connected to your earbuds after a period of time. [TOUCH CONTROLS] It makes a sound whenever you touch the touchpad. This helps me know if my press actually registered as a press on the buds. Even better is that the audio cues have different sounding tones for the button presses. The touch controls themselves are responsive. [CALL QUALITY] From my tests, the receiver of the call described the call as me sounding close, but I sounded muffled. This was evidenced from my end when they sounded unsure, hesitant, when I asked them how I sounded. Microphone placement seems to have a factor with the quality as well. When I twisted the earbud so that the microphone holes are more obstructed with the flap of skin outside of my ears (face-side) I was told my call sounded distorted. When is swiveled them back out of the way of that skin (I don’t know what it’s called) the distortion was gone but I still sounded muffled. Strangely though, I tested the microphone for sound quality on a voice memo and it sounded fine to me. I suspect the other functions that are only active during a phone call (e.g. sidetone) are the factors that degrade the call quality as opposed to using just the microphone itself. [BLUETOOTH RANGE/LATENCY] As far as range goes, I can only test up to 24 feet in my apartment, going through one wall of obstruction that’s 5 inches thick and it plays without any drops. However, when I have 2 layers of obstruction (so that’s about 10 inches of my walls) that’s when the drops start occurring and it’s no longer a listenable experience. With that said, 30 feet is probably well attainable provided it is in open space with no walls in the way. I didn’t experience many dropouts from the left and right, slave/master connection with the earbuds. I didn’t experience any latency issues with videos on YouTube or Netflix. The only time I did was when I played a rhythm game on an emulator, which tells me that a very slight latency issue does exist but it’s only a noticeable problem when you require extreme accuracy. I couldn’t really perceive any lag with lip-syncing in videos, even if they probably do exist. [CONCLUSION] Great sound but the cons outweigh the pros for me, especially when it’s not kind to the battery life of my phone. I can spend my money for less and get better features with comparable sound through adjusting the EQ.

Coming from the original AirPod and Powerbeats Pro. It took me a minute or 10 to find the correct placement on my ear where the sound and fit was best. The manual tells you to insert them in your ear then twist them. Simple enough I guess. Comes with four different size silicon plugs. Finding the right plug for your ear is important for comfort, overall sound, noise cancellation and so that it won’t fall out of your ear. Unfortunately for me, I need one in between two sizes but it’s not a deal breaker. You can personalize the earbuds through the Smart Control app which is available for iOS and Android. You can change touch control functions. I found that the default configurations is just about all that you can do, not that flexible and pretty useless for me. You can change the sound with the equalizer. The equalizer has a neutral preset by default and you can add up to nine presets of your own. These earbuds really sound great but I think the real challenge is finding the right sound with their version of an equalizer. Since you can’t individually set the frequencies like in a normal equalizer, you have to find the balance that suits your listening style by moving the cursor around bass, treble and mid. It was really hard for me to dial in my right sound so I really don’t like it much. I think these earbuds has the potential to be really great sounding ones but their equalizer just doesn’t do it justice. High, mid and low are well balanced, not over powering. Spacious and luxurious sound as it should with its price range. Bass is a bit lacking compared to my Powerbeats Pro. Again that might be the fault of the equalizer. I am using this earbud with Apple devices and for some reason, Siri sounds low and distorted. Voice calls are also not as clear as I expected and people on the other end tell me that the sound is muffled. My AirPods and Powerbeats works better with voice calls. The Transparent Hearing feature lets you listen to your tunes while being able to hear the outside world around you. Pretty neat feature. It almost gives you bionic hearing. The Active Noise Cancellation is very good in my opinion. Of course, over the ear headphones are still superior with ANC but these come close. Auto pause feature works but one time I found the earbuds still playing when I put them down on the counter. So if you place the earbuds where the sensor is facing an object, countertop in my case, then it will resume play. This can pair with multiple devices but it won’t let you switch between devices without having to disconnect it first unlike the AirPods or Powerbeats where they will automatically disconnect from one device so you can connect to another device. Having to take that extra step can be annoying, at least for me that is. The charcoal colored cloth covered carrying case is compact and light weight. The lid is kept closed magnetically. The earbuds are also held in their place with magnets. The case and earbuds are charge via a USB-C. There is a button on the back of the case along with an LED light to indicate battery level. The earbuds are IPX4 rated so can sweat with these on. The built quality is excellent. I really wanted to love these earbuds but I can’t wholeheartedly. It sounds great but in my opinion, it can sound better, a lot better. These are quality earbuds and it should be considered on the top 5 in this price range.

The Sennheiser MTW 2s are very similar in sound to my first gen mtw earbuds. They are very full and immersive, with a good soundstage and are very so slightly more detailed than the first iteration. Sennheiser also decided to tone down the bass in the 2s, resulting in a more neutral sound signature. This may be a pro or a con depending on personal preferences, but with a little testing using the equalizer in the app, I roughly matched the sound of the first gen earbuds. Overall the sound is top notch for wireless earbuds, but will not match wired iems in terms of quality. The earbuds themselves are smaller than the first generation, and are shaped slightly differently. I have large ears, so these fit less snugly, but the redesigned surface makes the contact with my ear more comfortable as the metal contact pads scratched my ear on the first generation. Sennheiser also changed the case design, giving the case a darker canvas color as well as a sturdier hinge. Sennheiser, however, did not change the molds on the inside of the case, so the earbuds dont actually match the case perfectly when placing them in, so I have to be more careful when placing the earbuds back in the case, otherwise the earbuds may not charge or turn off. The transparency mode on these earbuds has also been changed. On the first generation the transparency mode was very true to life, but was still drowned out by an music. As a result, sennheiser has increased the volume on the transparency mode, but I have noticed a lot of white noise in the background while transparency mode was active(note this was mainly at night when my ears were more sensitive when this became a noticable issue). These earbuds also have a white noise that plays whenever they're on, as well as a very faint crackling of static whenever a youtube video loads, or generally whenever the earbuds are preparing to play sound. Active noise cancelling on earbuds still seems like a gimmick to me as well. I do notice a difference when noise cancellation is turned on, but it's not really worth the extra battery drain in my opinion. Getting a good seal with the silicon tips will already do a great job at sound isolation. Note: these earbuds seem to turn off by themselves after a few minutes of inactivity, and this will turn off transparency mode as well. I found this very annoying as I want to leave my earbuds in while browsing the web. These earbuds also take longer to connect, and I suspect this may be due to the fix that sennheiser developed for the battery drain issue on the first generation. I'm assuming these turn off fully in the case, while the first generation didnt, resulting in a connection time that's nearly triple the time of the first generation's. These earbuds also have a main and secondary, or master and slave connection. This means that the right earbud can be used by itself, but the left one cannot, as the signal is sent from the phone to the right earbud, which then sends it to the left. One curious thing about this is that the earbuds turn on individually and the left one can turn on before the right one can. Perhaps sennheiser will patch in individual connections? Overall these earbuds are very good, a combination of great sound quality, combined with the feature set makes these a contender for the best wireless earbuds on the market. I just wish sennheiser had ironed out the previous items mentioned, as with a pair of earbuds that cost 300, I did expect a slightly more seamless experience.