Disclosure: I’d like to thank Sennheiser for providing me with the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and Sennheiser had no say or input on the contents of this review.

Sennheiser’s MOMENTUM series has always been a little different from the rest of the flagship Bluetooth ANC headphones on the market. While Sony, Bose, and Apple tend to focus heavily on noise-cancelling performance, lifestyle features, and ecosystem integration, Sennheiser has usually taken a more sound-first approach. That was true of the MOMENTUM 4 Wireless, and it is even more true with the new Sennheiser MOMENTUM 5 Wireless.

The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless is not a complete reinvention of the series, as some people were hoping. Instead, it feels like Sennheiser took what worked about the MOMENTUM 4 and refined the overall experience based on feedback. The overall chassis design returns, but now we get better ANC performance, a sound profile inspired by the HD600 series, Dolby Atmos spatial audio (with head-tracking support being added shortly), aptX Lossless support, Bluetooth 5.4 (will be updated to Bluetooth 6.0 via firmware), a smaller storage case, and perhaps most interestingly, a user-replaceable battery.

That last point is kind of a big deal. Bluetooth ANC headphones are usually treated like disposable tech products with a finite lifespan, so seeing Sennheiser build the MOMENTUM 5 around a replaceable 700 mAh battery is honestly refreshing. It makes the headphone feel more like a long-term audio product rather than something you are expected to replace every few years.

As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I like to approach these types of products from the perspective of the “casual audiophile”, someone who loves a premium, hi-fi experience but wants their gear to fit seamlessly into daily life. At $399 USD, the MOMENTUM 5 has a premium price tag, but it also looks like it has a lot to offer.

Throughout the review, I’ll be throwing in some comparisons with Sennheiser’s MOMENTUM 4 Wireless and HDB 630 since I know many will be comparing the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless to them. This review will not be an outright comparison of all three headphones, though. That will be coming a bit later, so stay tuned for that.

Ok, let’s get into the review and see what to make of the Sennheiser MOMENTUM 5 Wireless.

• Sennheiser MOMENTUM 5 Wireless
• Travel case
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• 2.5mm to 3.5mm analog audio cable
• Documentation

Sennheiser says it has made the storage case 20% smaller than the MOMENTUM 4, which is a very welcome change. One of my complaints with many premium ANC headphones is that even when the headphones themselves are reasonably portable, the case takes up far too much room in a backpack. The smaller case makes the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless feel more travel-friendly, and Sennheiser has still included all the essential accessories, except for an airplane adapter. The case itself also still feels extremely strong and durable, ensuring the headphones stay protected.

Here you can see that the MOMENTUM 5’s case is much slimmer and more portable than the one that comes with the MOMENTUM 4 (grey) and HDB 630 (black).

The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless still looks very much like a Sennheiser MOMENTUM headphone, and I mean that in a good way. It has a clean, modern, understated design that does not try too hard to look futuristic or flashy.  

The headphone is available in Black, White, and Denim. The Black model is the safest and most professional-looking, while the Denim colour gives the MOMENTUM 5 a bit more personality without making it look cheap or toy-like. I have the black model for this review.

Build quality feels excellent overall. The headphone has the lightweight, travel-friendly feel you want from a Bluetooth ANC headphone, but it does not feel flimsy. There are no concerning creaks, the yokes feel sturdy, and the headband has enough flex to accommodate different head sizes without creating too much clamp.

When it comes to comfort, Sennheiser has kept to the same formula as the MOMENTUM 4 Wireless and HDB 630. The earcups are deep and spacious enough, ensuring that the inner fabric never rubs against my ears, and the headband distributes the headphone’s weight flawlessly across the top of my head without creating painful hotspots during multi-hour listening sessions. If you found the comfort to be good with the MOMENTUM 4 Wireless and HDB 630, you’ll have the same experience here.

As someone who wears glasses, I’m always extra critical of clamping force and earpad design. The Momentum 5 handles this very well. The plush ear pads contour perfectly around the arms of my glasses, maintaining a good seal without pressing the frames into the sides of my head. There is a minor amount of natural heat buildup over time, which is par for the course with closed-back headphones, but they remain ventilated enough that my ears never felt sweaty or uncomfortable.

Visually, the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless is very hard to distinguish from its predecessor. You get the same woven fabric-covered headband, the same overall design of the headband, earcups, and yokes, and the same touch controls on the right earcup. There are slight visual differences you can look for (faceplate of the earcups is completely smooth, Sennheiser logo on the headband is larger and shinier, ANC microphones on the earcups are more prominent), but otherwise, there isn’t anything new here.

Here are a few comparison shots of the MOMENTUM 4 (white), HDB 630 (black with grey yokes), and MOMENTUM 5 (black).

Sennheiser has kept the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless simple to use, which is exactly what I want from this type of headphone. Premium Bluetooth headphones can sometimes become too clever for their own good, adding layers of gestures, menus, and features that make the actual day-to-day experience more frustrating than it needs to be. The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless avoids that, mostly.

The headphones power on with a single press of the power button, and thankfully, they do not have the auto-power on feature present on the MOMENTUM 4 and HDB 630. Pairing is straightforward, and there’s even support for Google Fast Pair now, which works very well. Multipoint support works as expected, and connection stability was excellent in all of my testing. Whether I was using it with my various smartphones, laptops, or DAPs, the MOMENTUM 5 connected quickly and stayed connected reliably.

The touch controls are still going to be somewhat divisive. I personally prefer physical buttons on headphones because they give you more confidence when adjusting playback or volume on the go and are less prone to accidental activation. That said, the MOMENTUM 5’s touch controls are responsive and fairly intuitive once you get used to them. The gestures are the same as on the MOMENTUM 4 and HDB 630, but the MOMENTUM 4 is notorious for delayed input responses (which did get better after some firmware updates). The MOMENTUM 5 feels almost perfect here by comparison. I didn’t experience any issues using any of the gestures, and the headphone responded instantly.

The gesture controls themselves are used for playback, volume, track skipping, ANC, and transparency adjustments. I still had the occasional accidental touch when adjusting the headphones, but this is not unique to Sennheiser. It is simply one of the compromises of touch-based headphone controls.

Sennheiser says the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless is up to three times more effective at voice noise reduction compared to its predecessor, and the number of microphones dedicated to ANC and transparency has doubled to four microphones per side. In my real-world testing, I did find the ANC performance to be a major improvement.

The MOMENTUM 4’s ANC trailed well behind Apple, Sony, and Bose, and not by a small margin either. The MOMENTUM 5 closes this gap considerably. Low-frequency noises, such as the rumble of a subway train, traffic during rush hour, HVAC systems, general road noise, and the movement of construction equipment is all handled very well. The biggest improvement that I hear, though, is with voices and higher-frequency noise. No ANC headphone completely eliminates nearby voices, but the MOMENTUM 5 does a noticeably better job reducing chatter in coffee shops and public spaces than I had expected, as well as construction noise and the squeals from passing by trains (which I hear on a daily basis from my apartment window). The Anti-wind mode is also improved, and these headphones actually do a pretty good job of combating wind noise.

Overall, the MOMENTUM 5’s ANC is much, much better than the ANC performance on the MOMENTUM 4 and even the HDB 630. If you were unsatisfied with the ANC performance of either of those headphones, the MOMENTUM 5 will probably satisfy you.

Despite the improvements that Sennheiser has made with the MOMENTUM 5’s ANC, it still doesn’t quite compete with the Apple AirPods Max 2, Sony WH-1000XM6 (or even the XM5), Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2nd Gen, or Sonos Ace (my go-to ANC headphone). If your priority is ANC performance above all else, you will want to look at one of those headphones instead. The gap is not as big as it was with the MOMENTUM 4, though. The MOMENTUM 5 wireless will get you 75% there.

The transparency mode has also been improved. It sounds more natural than before and does not have the overly processed quality that the MOMENTUM 4 tends to suffer from. It is still not quite at the AirPods Max levels of transparency and realism, but it is good enough that I was comfortable using it for quick conversations or when walking my dog outside. You can even adjust the transparency level within the companion app.

The Sennheiser Smart Control Plus app is a major part of the MOMENTUM 5 experience. Sennheiser has been steadily improving this app, and the MOMENTUM 5 benefits from that. It gives you access to the ANC controls, transparency settings, firmware updates, Sound Personalization, EQ, presets, and connection management. It is clean, responsive, and easy to navigate.

There is also a new 8-band EQ.  It’s sort of a shame that we don’t get the parametric EQ that’s available for the HDB 630, but an 8-band EQ is much better than nothing at all. It gives you enough flexibility to shape the sound without being overwhelming, as I assume this was designed for more casual users, versus the more audiophile users of the HDB 630.

Sennheiser’s Sound Personalization feature is also still one of the better implementations of guided tuning. It lets you adjust the sound based on your preferences without needing to understand frequency graphs or EQ terminology.

Dolby Atmos spatial audio is another headline feature here, though it does require supported Dolby Atmos content. I do not think spatial audio is something everyone will use all the time, but it can be genuinely enjoyable with the right content. Sennheiser has said that head-tracking will be added in a future update. I’ll be going into more details on the Dolby Atmos performance in the Sound Quality section below.

The Sennheiser MOMENTUM 5 Wireless is equipped with Bluetooth 5.4 support out of the box, but Sennheiser states that it will be updated to Bluetooth 6.0 via a firmware update (no timeline has been given for this yet). For codec support, we get SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, and aptX Lossless, along with Snapdragon Sound certification.

What all this means is that the MOMENTUM 5 is set up to be a very reliable and capable Bluetooth headphone, delivering the best possible sound over Bluetooth, and in all of my testing, this proved to be true. I did not experience any connection dropouts or stuttering, and the MOMENTUM 5 was always quick to pair or reconnect to my source devices. Every codec worked extremely well, even aptX Lossless.

My only complaint is that I wish there were a dedicated low-latency mode. When using the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless with my Surface Laptop 7 via the AAC codec (and even with aptX and aptX HD via a third-party driver), there is a small amount of audio latency when watching videos that I’m sure most people will notice. Same experience with my Samsung Galaxy Fold 7 via the aptX codec. When using the headphones with my MacBook Pro and iPhone 16, the experience was essentially perfect.

If you’re using a device that does not have support for aptX Adaptive, I’d suggest using a Bluetooth adapter such as the Sennheiser BTD 700 or FiiO Air Link. The BTD 700 has a dedicated “Gaming” mode which works extremely well, and the FiiO Air link has the ability to manually select the low-latency mode of the aptX Adaptive codec (this also works very, very well). The Questyle QCC Dongle Pro is also a good option, though I haven’t personally tried it yet.  

The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless is rated for up to 57 hours of playback with ANC enabled, which is excellent for a flagship ANC headphone. That is not quite the 60-hour rating of the MOMENTUM 4 or HDB 630, but it is still far better than most premium competitors. More importantly, the MOMENTUM 5 delivers this while offering stronger ANC, more microphones, and newer wireless features. Even when using the aptX Lossless codec, I am getting around 55 hours of playback time.

For real-world use, this means you can go several days, or even a full work week, without thinking about charging. For travel, it is even better. You can take the MOMENTUM 5 on a long trip and not feel the need to constantly charge it.

The fact that it also has a replaceable battery changes how I think about the product long-term. Battery degradation is one of the main reasons Bluetooth headphones (and really, any battery-powered device) eventually become frustrating to use. With the MOMENTUM 5, Sennheiser has given owners a path to extend the life of the headphone rather than spending more money replacing the whole thing. That deserves praise.

Below are some pictures of the battery replacement process:

The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless uses Sennheiser’s 42mm dynamic transducer, and the headphone’s tuning is stated to be inspired by the HD 600-series.

That does not mean that the MOMENTUM 5 sounds like an HD 600. It does not. This is still a closed-back Bluetooth ANC headphone, and it is tuned for portable, everyday listening. However, it does have that Sennheiser sense of balance where detail, warmth, and musicality are all given room to coexist.

The overall sound signature is full-bodied, clean, and energetic. It is not a neutral-leaning audiophile tuning in the same way the HDB 630 aims to be, but it is also not overly bass-heavy or muddy. It’s definitely V-shaped, as most ANC headphones are, with more of an emphasis on the sub-bass compared to the MOMENTUM 4.

Bass

Bass is full, punchy, and satisfying. The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless has enough low-end note weight to make genres like pop, hip-hop, electronic, and rock sound engaging, but it does not overwhelm the rest of the frequency range. Sub-bass extension is also strong, and can at times sound a bit too much. You do get a good sense of rumble when the track calls for it, and kick drums have a satisfying physical impact, but sometimes it’s a little overwhelming.

What I do like most is that the bass, though, is that it does not feel slow or too bloated. There is enough control to keep busy tracks from becoming messy, and the low-end warmth gives the MOMENTUM 5 a fun, easygoing character without making it sound like your typical mainstream ANC headphone.

For the bass, overall, I don’t think very much has changed here compared to the MOMENTUM 4, other than maybe just a bit more clarity in the mid-bass. What this means is that if you found the MOMENTUM 4 to have too much bass presence, the MOMENTUM 5 will also be too much for you. Personally, I really like the direction Sennheiser went here for the bass, but for those that don’t, this is one of the reasons the HDB 630 exists.

Midrange

The midrange is smooth, natural, and slightly warm. Vocals have good body and presence, and instruments such as guitars, piano, and strings sound convincing. Male vocals benefit from the warmth in the lower midrange, while female vocals are clear without becoming sharp. The MOMENTUM 5 does not push vocals aggressively forward, but they never feel buried either.

Compared to something more audiophile-focused like the HDB 630, the MOMENTUM 5 is a little more relaxed in its midrange presentation. It is less analytical, but arguably easier to enjoy for long listening sessions.

Treble

Treble is clean and detailed without being too harsh. There is enough sparkle to give cymbals, strings, and vocal overtones some energy, but Sennheiser has wisely avoided making the MOMENTUM 5 sound artificially bright. This is one of the areas where I think Sennheiser’s tuning experience shows. It has good detail retrieval for a wireless ANC headphone, but the treble remains smooth enough for casual listening, travel, and everyday use. I did notice the treble peak into sibilant territory on some brighter tracks, but generally, it’s a very satisfying tuning.

Soundstage and Imaging

For a closed-back ANC headphone, the MOMENTUM 5 has a spacious and open presentation. It does not sound as wide or airy as an open-back headphone, of course, but it avoids the boxed-in feeling that some ANC headphones have, mostly thanks to the tuning profile used.

Imaging is also strong. Instruments and effects are placed clearly across the left and right channels, and there is a decent sense of layering. With spatial audio enabled, the presentation becomes wider and more immersive, though I still prefer the standard stereo mode for most music and content.

Dolby Atmos Content

The MOMENTUM 5 Wireless has support for what Sennheiser calls “Immersive Audio”. The Smart Control Plus app states that this feature can be used with stereo content (which I did try, but it made stereo music sound distant and muddy), and with Dolby Atmos content, which is probably what most people will be enabling this feature for. Currently, head-tracking is not supported, but I’m told by Sennheiser that it will be coming very soon through a firmware update.

Listening to Dolby Atmos content with this option enabled does indeed work, but you will need access to Tidal or Apple Music, since those are currently the only music streaming services that offer Dolby Atmos content. I also tested with Apple Music in Windows, and yes, it does work as long as you have installed the Dolby Atmos app, enabled Dolby Atmos for Headphones, and enabled the Dolby Atmos option in the Apple Music app’s settings.

As far as how it sounds, well, it will depend on what you’re listening to. For content that is mastered properly for Dolby Atmos, such as Steven Wilson’s “The Harmony Codex”, the actual effect is incredible. Audio is properly placed so that it doesn’t sound like it is all coming from the same direction, and really, this album does an excellent job showcasing what is possible with Dolby Atmos. I’m still not a convert to listening to music with spatial audio, but for those that do, the MOMENTUM 5 really does a great job here.

The microphone quality is an improvement over the MOMENTUM 4, thanks to the additional microphones added to the headphone for ANC/Transparency. Voices sound richer and more natural, and background noise is also isolated better. Call quality is something that has not held up very well with the MOMENTUM 4, but it’s very usable now, and it competes with most modern, flagship ANC headphones. I have a couple of voice samples below:

MOMENTUM 5 Microphone Test

MOMENTUM 4 Microphone Test

The Sennheiser MOMENTUM 5 Wireless feels like the headphone the MOMENTUM 4 was always leading towards. It keeps the strengths of the previous generation, especially the excellent sound quality and long battery life, while improving the areas that needed attention.

The ANC performance is much better, the transparency mode sounds more natural, codec support is stronger and future-proofed, and the addition of a user-replaceable battery is a genuinely useful addition that will benefit users for many years (and hopefully set a precedent).

I also appreciate that Sennheiser has not lost sight of what makes the MOMENTUM series appealing in the first place. This is still a sound-first Bluetooth ANC headphone. It is not trying to be the smartest headphone, the flashiest headphone, or the most ecosystem-integrated headphone. It is trying to be a great-sounding premium wireless headphone that also works well in everyday life.

There are still a few things I would change. I would prefer physical buttons over touch controls, and while the ANC is much improved, it still falls behind other flagship ANC headphones. Spatial audio is also more of a nice-to-have feature than a must-have for me. And I do wish that a low-latency mode were present.

But as a complete package, the MOMENTUM 5 Wireless really is excellent. It sounds fantastic, it is comfortable, it has excellent battery life, and it feels built with long-term ownership in mind. If you care more about sound quality than having the absolute strongest ANC on the market, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM 5 Wireless should be very high on your list.

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I’m not always able to cover all the details of a product, both hardware and software, in our reviews. If you have any specific questions about this product, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly.

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