Sennheiser - MOMENTUM Wireless Noise-Canceling Over-the-Ear Headphones - Black

I’d say the Bose NCH 700 is my current top pick for a noise cancelling headphone at this time. I’ve tried pretty much every other pair under sun and the Bose is the most well rounded. Price - Both are currently $399USD at the time of this review. Design - I prefer the looks of the Bose while on my head. It’s more streamlined and minimalistic. The Sennheiser’s look more elegant with the steel and leather materials off the head, however the exposed wiring looks kinda funky on the head from a front view (hence why none of the promo pics show the model wearing these headphones from a front view. They’re always looking towards the side.) Also, the Momentum’s looks bigger on my head which is never a good thing when outside. Both are built well with no worries that one will break easily from normal usage. The Momentum’s takes the slight edge here with authentic leather on the ear-pads and headband. The Bose can fold flat which results in a much smaller profile when stowed away in its hard carrying case. The Sennheiser’s can also fold, but not flat. The carrying case is about twice the thickness of the Bose and it’s not a hard material so your headphones face a higher chance of crush damage while being in your bag. Controls - Bose went touch controls while Sennheiser retained the tried and true button configuration. Both headphones allow controls of your volume, play and pause media and call accept and hang up and hold. Both thankfully have a dedicated voice assistant button however the Bose allows for always on and listening Alexa. Both can toggle between ANC modes, but the Bose allows for 3 ANC presets switching while the Sennheiser’s allow for only ANC on or off and ambient mode. The Bose surprisingly doesn’t allow you to turn off the ANC from the headphone and you have to do that from the app. The touch controls on the Bose is pretty responsive and I don’t really have issues with it. The button controls on the Sennheiser’s is tactile and works as should. So it really depends if you prefer buttons or touch controls here. Comfort - I prefer the Bose slightly here. It’s lighter and just hugs my head with enough pressure to not fall off with any sudden head movements. The ear-pads opening is generous and allows my ears to go in all the way and not be clamped down. The Sennheiser’s is quite comfortable but they’re heavier and clamp a little harder on my head. I can wear both for 2 hours straight but the Bose just leaves my headphone not feeling as fatigued. Battery Life - Bose takes the cake here. Longer 20 hour battery vs. the Sennheiser’s 17 hours. Also, from a quick charge the Bose can receive a longer charge at 3 hours vs the Sennheiser’s 1.5 hours. Both charge via USB-C. Bluetooth - Sennheiser’s take the cake here in terms of codec support. NFC support is on the Sennheiser’s but not the Bose. They also support AptX-LL which is great for those who might want to play video games if they have a AptX-LL equipped receiver. Both support AAC and SBC, but the Bose does not support AptX. Connectivity and range has been pretty great on both and haven’t had any crazy issues while using both on the bus, subway, walking through NYC, at the office and at home. Both support 2 device connections. I prefer the Bose implementation because it switches between devices more seamlessly and the voice prompts tells you the name of the device it is connected to. The Sennheiser’s voice prompt just says “phone 1” or “phone 2” which isn’t really helpful if you have a desk with a MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and iPhone XS Max on it. Both can conveniently be put into pairing mode from one of the buttons on the control side of the headphone’s ear-cups. Call quality - Bose is still number 1 here. Callers continue to tell me they can hear my clearly despite me being right next to a bus engine on my commute to work. Meanwhile on the Sennheiser’s, callers said they can hear the bus engine and I need to speaker up louder in the same environment, but they can still hear me unlike the Sony WH1000Xm3 which is completely horrible in these situations. If you’re in a quiet to moderately loud environment, they’re both gonna do well. The Bose just sets itself apart in noisy environments due to the excellent microphone array and the ability to cancel our background noises. Both have a convenient feature to mute your microphone while on the call using the voice control button on the Bose and the volume down button on the Sennheiser’s. Features - Both do the basics for a 2019 premium ANC headphones. Bose has significantly more control over its ANC system (albeit a bit overkill). Also, there’s a preset button to toggle between 3 saved ANC presets leveraging on the fly adaptation to your environment. Sennheiser’s approach is to either have it on max or on with wind reduction mode or lower cabin pressure, off or transparency/ambient mode with the ability to have audio play as well or not. The ambient mode is slightly superior on the Bose. Simply sounds like I don’t have headphones on and every natural. The Sennheiser’s sound slightly digital but very good nonetheless. As for noise cancelling, Bose is easily superior. With the Sennheiser’s, I can still hear a decent amount of what’s going on around me while I’m commuting or walking through the city. With the Bose, the world literally melts away when the noise canceling is engaged and I can faintly hear what’s going on around me. When music is playing for the most part they will both block out everything around you typical in a commuting situation unless you listen at low volumes or there’s a quiet passage in the music, then the Sennheiser’s weaker ANC will cause loud outside noise to seep in. Sound - I enjoy listening to both. The device I used is my MacBook Pro streaming AptX to the Sennheiser’s and AAC to the Bose. The Sennheiser’s is the more bass heavy, richer and warmer sounding of the two. The Bose is very balanced and neutral to my ears. Very high levels of clarity and detail can be heard on both sets, but the Bose slightly edges the Sennheiser’s in immediate detail and clarity due to the more neutral frequency response. Soundstage is superior on the Sennheiser’s. Everything just has this multidimensional and spacious presentation. The music sounds more like a live performance as opposed to listening in a studio like on the Bose. The separation of the instruments within the music is slightly better on the Bose due to the more neutral frequency response allowing subtle nuances in the mix to be more distinct. This aides in the ability to replicate a more convincing sense of space between the sounds in which the Bose excels over the Sennheiser in this regard. The Sennheiser’s bass can sometimes come off a bit too boomy and mask the subtle nuances in the mix. But this is rare and it’s quite a feat despite the amount of bass emphasis here. It’s a healthy bass boost but it is centered in the sub-bass which mitigates bass bleed into the midrange. The Sony WH1000Xm3 in comparison has a bass boost mostly in the upper and mid bass which blooms over into the mids and makes them sound boomy overall. Overall the Sennheiser is a warm and rich sounding headphone with great levels of clarity and detail. The Bose is a balanced and neutral sounding headphone with a slightly favoritism towards the warm side of the spectrum and excellent levels of detail and clarity. The Sennheiser’s get louder than the Bose and don’t distort at max volume which is a plus if you like to listen at those volumes. The Bose at max volume can distort on some tracks. I personally listen to at most 80% so max volume performance isn’t important to me. Also, no, I don’t believe in burn-in (If you’re getting ready to say I didn’t have the Sennheiser’s long enough). I’ve listened to brand new headphones and a highly used one of the same model and they sound and measure the exact same. Conclusion - The Sennheiser’s have a special spot in my collection even though It performs worse overall in ANC performance, isn’t as comfortable to my head, has a worse overall battery performance, looks elegant but a bit uglier in my opinion than the streamlined Bose, doesn’t perform as well for calls, has less overall controllability from the headphone than the Bose, and it’s bulkier to carry around due to the much larger case that provides less protection than the Bose. Why? Because despite all that it still does the essentials required from a modern day 2019 pair of ANC wireless headphones all while packing the one of, if not the best sound experience in this category to my ears. It's a really close call between it and the Bose. Great job Sennheiser. You managed to incorporate a better microphone for voice pickup and 2 device Bluetooth connectivity (something the Sony WH1000Xm3 couldn’t do), decent, controllable ANC with ambient modes and good comfort alongside your signature sound. Color me impressed!

The Sennheiser headphones are very impressive in the sound stage department. I was literally blow away by the soundstage !! The build quality is second to none but the only caveat is the app. The is the best sounding headphones in this category!!

The Bose and Sony are both great and all but I got these and have never been more satisfied with a pair of headphones. The bass is almost like a subwoofer that shakes your head but if you don’t like that then you can adjust it in the app. They are however a lot heavier than Bose or Sony but honestly very comfortable and way better build quality then the other options.

I cant believe I am giving a Sennheiser product a bad review, but here we are. I am a long time Sennheiser fan, but they missed the mark with these IMO. My hat size is 7 3/8, which I dont think is overly large or small. I had fit issues with these from the get go. No matter what I did, they never felt secure on my head, and my right ear would always touch the inside of the headphone a tiny bit. That in it of itself would be no big deal, but... These have a "feature" where when you remove your headphones, they pause, and when you close them, they turn off on. Sounds great in theory, but in practice, it was maddening. The pressure sensor is located in the right ear piece. Even shifting it slightly (kept doing this because of the above issue), it will either pause your music playback, or if you are on a call, it will put it on hold (not mute, Hold). Even something as simple as a quick head turn (no, I was not going all Waynes World and headbanging to queen), was enough to cause the music to pause or hold a call. I honestly thought I had a bad bluetooth connection until I figured out what was going on. I also had an experience where I was driving my car, phone playing on my car radio via Bluetooth, and I came to a stop. The headphones were on my front passenger seat, and they rolled forward and opened slightly. That was enough for my phone to try and switch from my radio to my car. I had to pull over to figure out what the heck happened. Just sitting still, I will say the sound quality is excellent, exactly what you would expect from Sennheiser. I really like the retro look, and was initially also excited that these maintained traditional buttons instead of hand gestures. The app seemed to work, but the EQ was a little weird. ANC was good, but not as good as the bose. Ultimately, I returned these and got the Bose 700s. They fit better, have a longer battery life, better ANC, and I surprisingly loved the touch control. I will concede that they dont sound quite as good as these, but truthfully, you are splitting hairs at that point.