GoKawiilOver the years, Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless earbuds have been among the best-sounding buds you can buy, but they’ve yet to truly combine that great sound with top-tier noise-canceling and voice-calling performance. That may be about to change with its new $300 Momentum True Wireless 5 buds, which are available for preorder now and ship on Sept. 3 in five color options.
Following the release of Sennheiser’s Momentum Wireless 5 over-ear headphones in May, this fifth-generation in-ear model not only has a new external design but also upgraded components, including Bluetooth 6.0, an expanded microphone array (three mics in each earbud) with two bone-conduction voice accelerometers and replaceable batteries in both the buds and case, which supports wireless charging. Spatial audio with head-tracking is also new.
The Momentum True Wireless 5 earbuds come in five color options: graphite, cream, copper, denim and lavender. Sennheiser/CNET
The buds’ drivers are the same “signature” 7-mm TrueResponse dynamic transducers found in their predecessor that helped the Momentum True Wireless 4 produce clean, rich sound with powerful, well-defined bass. I expect this model to deliver similar, if not slightly better, sound quality, but the real gains should show up more in noise-canceling and voice-calling performance.
Sennheiser says the Momentum True Wireless 5 have a revised adaptive hybrid active noise cancellation (or ANC) system, automatic anti-wind mode and an AI speech-extraction algorithm to isolate your voice in noisy environments. “The redesigned eartips work in tandem with a dedicated four-microphone array to maximize noise-canceling performance while delivering the series’ most natural-sounding, real-time transparency mode to date,” per Sennheiser.
The buds have an expanded microphone array.
While Sennheiser indicated that it improved the buds’ ergonomics and fit, they do weigh slightly more than their predecessor (7 grams per bud versus 6.2 grams — that 0.8-gram difference is about the weight of a grape). Interestingly, the battery life rating improves with noise canceling off (up to 12 hours) but gets slightly worse with noise canceling on (up to six hours instead of around seven hours).
I’ll have to do my own testing once my review sample arrives, but I look forward to seeing and hearing how they compare to other top noise-canceling earbuds from Apple, Bose, Sony, Samsung and others. If Sennheiser has raised the bar for its noise-canceling and voice-canceling performance as advertised, the Momentum True Wireless 5 may just earn a spot near the top of our best wireless earbuds list.
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 key highlights