Introducing MOMENTUM 4 Wireless

[KopaneDePooj]

i was expecting more bass through wired connection though.

Why?

One more thing. I also tried to play with the treble settings. And i read on the interent that treble can help improve the soundstage, is it correct ?

Only you can answer yourself, did it improve soundstage?

I'm not trying to act as a smart ass saying this, it's just very subjective. Generally speaking driver quality, chamber construction, factory tuning are things that determine soundstage. Increasing treble may give the perception of larger soundstage for some ears but it is only a "fake" effect, and may come with increased auditory fatigue.

 

[arsh27]

Why?


Only you can answer yourself, did it improve soundstage?

I'm not trying to act as a smart ass saying this, it's just very subjective. Generally speaking driver quality, chamber construction, factory tuning are things that determine soundstage. Increasing treble may give the perception of larger soundstage for some ears but it is only a "fake" effect, and may come with increased auditory fatigue.

I just thought wired connection will be better as mentioned in the reviews. But i could not notice any difference by switching again and again

 

[GungJoe]

I have no clue if treble improves the soundstage, I don't understand why it would and I can't say I heard any difference in soundstage before or after going with +4 on the upper end of the EQ. I just went with +4 treble because that's the outcome of the 'sound check' that it gave me a better result. My best way of describing it would be that it felt as though the sound sparkled a little bit more.

I have heard theories that scooping out the mids and effectively increasing bass and treble would result in a wider sound stage, but I'm not personally knowledgeable enough about audio science and headphone engineering to say much about that. I do feel that headphones with wider soundstage tend to be quite varied. The fidelio x2hr has an incredible soundstage with quite a neutral tuning, the same with the 6xx's. So if were to speculate based on my subjective experience with different headphones, I'd say there's no obvious reason to believe increasing the treble, especially with EQ, would improve the soundstage.

With that said, while we're on the topic, the Momentum 4's actually have remarkable soundstage for a pair of closed back headphones. It feels as though I'm in a room with the artist in front of me, rather than having the sound playing inside my head or right next to my ears. I think they're wider sounding than the Airpods Max, XM5s or wired headphones like the 700 Pro X / 770 from Beyer.

 

[ericpalonen]

while we're on the topic, the Momentum 4's actually have remarkable soundstage for a pair of open back headphone

Glad you're enjoying them! I would agree that they have a nice spread opposed to sounding like they are coming from inside your head. Quick note: they are indeed a closed principle headphone as there are no functional ports on the earcup implemented for the transducer output to expand. This assists with passive isolation and active noise cancellation and is the ideal choice for noisy environments and travel

 

[Hyde00]

LOL so I've got mine on the weekend but it's been a crazy last few days and I keep passing out at night time, so tonight I finally have some time to take it out for a spin!

Here are some first impressions, the build quality is good! Clamp pressure is slightly high but I'd imagine it's so it won't fall off your head. Otherwise it's comfortable and ear pad is plush. Though maybe I have giant head so I prefer Bose SoundTrue type of clamping pressure (low). Oh and I tried to use it with my computer but unfortunately the Sennheiser app is for phone only.

There's definitely some digital processing done when it's in bluetooth mode, I tried wired mode it sounded off....... like the tonal balance/timbre is weird, but everything is corrected in bluetooth mode. In fact, in bluetooth mode the tonal balance is great! Remind me a bit of the Bose house sound which I really like.

Soundstage is also not bad! Resolution is decent but obviously can't compare to my desktop gear since it cost like way more (Lyr 3 + SDAC + TH900 Lawton).

Otherwise so far so good I'll try to spend more time with it the next 2 weeks!

Here I can answer some of the questions:

Hey sennheiser is there any chance in future software update that we can turn off ANC completely ( not reducing but just off )
And does wired connection turn ANC off ?
i'm not comfortable with anc and today i read on reddit that one person sold his M4 because of this because he was sensitive to anc, i'm too.

+1 to this. The ANC on this headset is weird, I feel some kind of pressure in my head.
I also have the Shure Aonic 50 which I use at work and it allows to switch between ANC/Ambient/Off with a simple switch and is much more comfortable.

I totally agree with this, I wish there is a way to turn off ANC. Without music playing there is this weird pressure feeling that is commonly found on most ANC headphones.

Since I'm just using it at my desk I think I can do without the ANC in this situation.

Got mine today
Anyone confirm why are the drivers bent to one side ? And whats that red color device on the right earcup.
i will post my initial impression comparing them to my grado 80's

Oh so to create better forward imaging most headphone either have flat driver but angled ear pad (angle forward), OR angled driver (angle forward) but flat ear pad.

In this case Sennheiser chose to have angled driver but flat ear pad. This is perfectly normal and there's no consensus on which method is better, every company do it differently lol.

Some examples:

Denon/Fostex = flat driver, angled ear pad
Sennheiser = angled driver, flat ear pad
Audio Technica = angled driver, flat ear pad
Sony = depending on model
Grado = flat driver, flat ear pad (they're rebels lol)

 

[Soundizer]

Thanks for the question. We've submitted this request to our development team. The wired connection does not disable ANC. You can certainly reduce it using the manual switch in the smart control app. I'm a big fan of this setting (attached a screenshot) to keep passive isolation but not have too much transparency or ANC.

The connectivity is really bad on MM4. Much worse than Sony XM5/4 and Bose equivalent.

 

[hldn]

The connectivity is really bad on MM4. Much worse than Sony XM5/4 and Bose equivalent.

I have zero connectivity problems and I'm using them on a daily basis (5+ hours each day) with three different devices. What problems are you experiencing?

 

[Soundizer]

I have zero connectivity problems and I'm using them on a daily basis (5+ hours each day) with three different devices. What problems are you experiencing?

Throughout connection there are drop outs.

Also the Senn APP doesn’t show APTX HD which the device is transmitting. “It states no codec”. Apt X ADAPTIVE is supposed to be backward compatibility so something not right.

I asked the Senn Sponser here three times but no answer.

 

[hldn]

Throughout connection there are drop outs.

Also the Senn APP doesn’t show APTX HD which the device is transmitting. “It states no codec”. Apt X ADAPTIVE is supposed to be backward compatibility so something not right.

I asked the Senn Sponser here three times but no answer.

No drop outs here.
Same "no codec" thing for me, the app is just bad. (Android reports APTX HD being used in developer options)

 

[GungJoe]

I had the weirdest experience with these yesterday. So I was playing around with different connectivity options, particularly for a wired connection. And I found that using the USB connection into my laptop is a great way to use these.

It uses the onboard dac, so you get the sound you're used to out of them, but also you can push a higher quality source into them which is great. But on top of that, the controls and microphone also work on your computer via USB. So you can chat on a video call or change volume from the headset, the same as you would via a bluetooth connection. All the while, your charging your device up.

So that was a really pleasant surprise.

But then I did something awful. I plugged the USB connection into my PS5. I don't understand why, but the PS5 does not output an appropriate signal to these headphones via USB. It sounds of terrible quality, hollow and generally unpleasant. On PS5, the USB connection is much worse than the wired connection. Does anyone know why that might be?

On top of that however, connecting it to PS5 via USB, seemed to cause some kind of issue with the headphones and I could no longer get a wired 3.5mm signal out of them. I tried many sources, my laptop, my Zen DAC connected to my PC, and the PS5 controller, and one of these would output a signal. After plugging them into the PS5 the headphones decided that they couldn't do wired audio via the 2.5 to 3.5mm connection.

I tried turning them off and on, tried fiddling with all sorts of different settings within my devices and the Senheiser app itself (honestly wasted like an hour of my life trying to fix this) and then eventually I decided to factory reset the Momentum 4's. As soon as I factory reset them, the wired connection came back.

What the hell happened here? Either way, I'm never going to plug these into the PS5 again. At a certain point I thought I was worried I would have to return them because the PS5 had fried them or something, but thankfully the factory reset did the trick.

 

[ericpalonen]

I had the weirdest experience with these yesterday. So I was playing around with different connectivity options, particularly for a wired connection. And I found that using the USB connection into my laptop is a great way to use these.

It uses the onboard dac, so you get the sound you're used to out of them, but also you can push a higher quality source into them which is great. But on top of that, the controls and microphone also work on your computer via USB. So you can chat on a video call or change volume from the headset, the same as you would via a bluetooth connection. All the while, your charging your device up.

So that was a really pleasant surprise.

But then I did something awful. I plugged the USB connection into my PS5. I don't understand why, but the PS5 does not output an appropriate signal to these headphones via USB. It sounds of terrible quality, hollow and generally unpleasant. On PS5, the USB connection is much worse than the wired connection. Does anyone know why that might be?

On top of that however, connecting it to PS5 via USB, seemed to cause some kind of issue with the headphones and I could no longer get a wired 3.5mm signal out of them. I tried many sources, my laptop, my Zen DAC connected to my PC, and the PS5 controller, and one of these would output a signal. After plugging them into the PS5 the headphones decided that they couldn't do wired audio via the 2.5 to 3.5mm connection.

I tried turning them off and on, tried fiddling with all sorts of different settings within my devices and the Senheiser app itself (honestly wasted like an hour of my life trying to fix this) and then eventually I decided to factory reset the Momentum 4's. As soon as I factory reset them, the wired connection came back.

What the hell happened here? Either way, I'm never going to plug these into the PS5 again. At a certain point I thought I was worried I would have to return them because the PS5 had fried them or something, but thankfully the factory reset did the trick.

Strange! This is the first report of someone trying to connect them that way. The reason that you can hot plug them into a PC or Mac and have them take over as your audio input and output device is that they are class compliant, and based around a standard for hardware connected to that operating system. PS5 does not have that same standard (only a small subset of it) so plug & play USB audio devices are really hit and miss on their hardware.

 

[hldn]

I had the weirdest experience with these yesterday. So I was playing around with different connectivity options, particularly for a wired connection. And I found that using the USB connection into my laptop is a great way to use these.

It uses the onboard dac, so you get the sound you're used to out of them, but also you can push a higher quality source into them which is great. But on top of that, the controls and microphone also work on your computer via USB. So you can chat on a video call or change volume from the headset, the same as you would via a bluetooth connection. All the while, your charging your device up.

So that was a really pleasant surprise.

But then I did something awful. I plugged the USB connection into my PS5. I don't understand why, but the PS5 does not output an appropriate signal to these headphones via USB. It sounds of terrible quality, hollow and generally unpleasant. On PS5, the USB connection is much worse than the wired connection. Does anyone know why that might be?

On top of that however, connecting it to PS5 via USB, seemed to cause some kind of issue with the headphones and I could no longer get a wired 3.5mm signal out of them. I tried many sources, my laptop, my Zen DAC connected to my PC, and the PS5 controller, and one of these would output a signal. After plugging them into the PS5 the headphones decided that they couldn't do wired audio via the 2.5 to 3.5mm connection.

I tried turning them off and on, tried fiddling with all sorts of different settings within my devices and the Senheiser app itself (honestly wasted like an hour of my life trying to fix this) and then eventually I decided to factory reset the Momentum 4's. As soon as I factory reset them, the wired connection came back.

What the hell happened here? Either way, I'm never going to plug these into the PS5 again. At a certain point I thought I was worried I would have to return them because the PS5 had fried them or something, but thankfully the factory reset did the trick.

Try disabling 3D Audio in the PS5

 

[labambia]

Hello everyone
I previously had Momentum 3 and I was very happy with them, until bluetooth pulsing noise issue in right earcup happend. That was after about three months of use. Amazon suggested refound (they didn't have M3 in stock at this momement), so I did, and forget about BT headphones for a while.

Now I'm quite happy with my new Momentum 4 (got them two days ago). I don't have any issues so far, accept creaking noise, wchich I resolved with GPL 205g0 lube (thanks to Fiorin).

@ericpalonen - are there any plans to implement High End Sound Tuning feature, similar to the one in M3?
In my opinion this setting makes M3 sound signature almost perfect, and I think M4 need that feature too. Sure I can play with EQ, but it's not the same as HEST IMHO.
Also genuine leather pads as a spare part would be nice. My ears are getting hot fast in M4. I don't remember that in M3, so I'm quite sure that's because of synthetic material used in M4.

 

[GungJoe]

Try disabling 3D Audio in the PS5

I did toggle it on and off while trying them and they sounded awful either way.

As @ericpalonen points above though, this is really not Senheisers and the momentum 4's fault, the M4s are compliant, and the PS5 just doesn't handle things properly. I knew that the PS5 wasn't compatible with a lot of audio devices when I plugged them in. I thought there was no harm in giving it a go though.

I wouldn't use them on PS5 anyway since I use the Audeze LCD GX there and the Audeze sound quite a bit better than the momentum 4s, and the mic is a lot better as its designed for that particular purpose. I was just messing around really.

 

[Hyde00]

Throughout connection there are drop outs.

Also the Senn APP doesn’t show APTX HD which the device is transmitting. “It states no codec”. Apt X ADAPTIVE is supposed to be backward compatibility so something not right.

I asked the Senn Sponser here three times but no answer.

No drop outs here.
Same "no codec" thing for me, the app is just bad. (Android reports APTX HD being used in developer options)

Same here, no dropout for me. Though I just use default setting so I didn't try to check the codec so I'm not sure.