Sennheiser Momentum 5

HiFi, Headphones
Sennheiser Momentum 5 — The House Sound Goes Wireless

Sennheiser has always sold restraint as a feature, and the Momentum line is where that philosophy meets Bluetooth. The Momentum 4 was already a sensible, unshowy flagship; the Momentum 5 arrives with a genuinely useful hardware upgrade — a user-replaceable battery — bolted onto sound tuning that borrows, quite deliberately, from the wired side of the family. For a company that also makes the HD600, that’s not a coincidence.

Build & Design

At £329, the Momentum 5 undercuts the Sony and Bose flagships while looking a shade plainer for it — mainly plastic construction with metallic accents on the yokes and a fabric-wrapped headband, 291g on the head. It’s comfortable over long sessions, with only mild on-ear warmth creeping in past the hour mark, but there’s no IP rating and the finish reads a touch budget next to the leather-and-metal competition. The party piece is genuine: the battery sits behind four Phillips screws on the left cup and is user-replaceable, a rarity at this price and a proper answer to the e-waste problem every other flagship quietly ignores. You get both a 3.5mm cable and USB-C with data for wired use, Bluetooth 5.4 (6.0-ready) with SBC, AAC, aptX and aptX Adaptive, and solid multipoint via the Smart Control Plus app, which also carries an 8-band EQ, a personalised hearing test, and GPS-based auto-profiles.

Sound

Sound

Sennheiser fitted 42mm dynamic drivers explicitly inspired by the HD 600 series’ tuning, chasing a “full-bodied sound with dynamic bass” rather than the scooped, bass-forward signature so much of this category defaults to. It mostly works — the Momentum 5 is warm and easy to live with, with better instrument separation than the Momentum 4 and a spatial quality that holds up even without Dolby Atmos switched on. The bass can run a little generous out of the box, but the EQ tames it in seconds. It’s the most “hi-fi” a wireless flagship has sounded to my ears without actually being one.

Noise Cancelling & Features

ANC is adaptive hybrid via eight microphones, and reviewers clock roughly 20dB of attenuation below 1.1kHz — genuinely close to the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QC Ultra now, where previous Momentums trailed both. Transparency mode is usable but sounds a shade artificial next to Sony’s. Battery life is the real headline: over 50 hours with ANC on, extendable further with the app’s 80% charge-limit option, comfortably beating anything else in this review batch.

Comparisons

Next to the Sony WH-1000XM6, the Momentum 5 gives up a little ANC polish and transparency-mode naturalism but wins on battery life, the replaceable-battery trick, and a warmer, more musical tuning that flatters vocals and acoustic material. Against the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 it can’t match the build or the sheer body B&W chases, but it costs meaningfully less. What matters most to me, though, is the lineage: through my HD600 the same house sound is instantly recognisable — unforced mids, no artificial sparkle — even if the wireless set can’t touch the HD600’s resolving power or the Hifiman Sundara’s soundstage. SoundGuys named it an Editor’s Choice at 8.6/10; What Hi-Fi called the overall package “rich” and “expressive” with “plenty of appeal.”

Verdict

Pros

  • Warm, detailed, genuinely Sennheiser-flavoured tuning
  • User-replaceable battery — a first at this price
  • Over 50 hours battery life
  • ANC now properly competitive with Sony/Bose

Cons

  • Plasticky build for the money, no IP rating
  • Bass runs warm out of the box
  • Transparency mode sounds a little artificial
  • Still a rung below the class-leading Sony/Bose ANC

Ratings:

  • Build & Design: 7.5 / 10
  • Sound: 8.5 / 10
  • Features: 8.5 / 10
  • Value: 9 / 10

The Momentum 5 is the wireless flagship that sounds like it actually came from the people who made the HD600 — and the replaceable battery means it might outlive the rest of this batch by years.