34 JULY2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE389
SENNHEISER Momentum
TrueWireless2
★★★★★
£279•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
WIRELESSIN-EARHEADPHONES
VERDICT
Sennheiser’struewirelessearbudssoundas
goodasany,buttheycomeataheftyprice
HEADPHONESSUBTYPEIn-ear•PLUG TYPENone•
WEIGHT12g•CABLELENGTHN/A•WARRANTYTwo
yearsRTB•DETAILSen-uk.sennheiser.com•PART
CODE 508674
SPECIFICATIONS
ATFIRSTGLANCE,Sennheiser’s new
Momentum True Wireless 2look more or
less the same as their predecessors, but
don’t be fooled intothinking the German
manufacturer has rested on its laurels. Its
second-gen true wireless earbuds improve
on the originals with active noise cancelling
(ANC) and drastically improved battery life,
along with aslimmer design.
The outerhousing is still slightly bulky,
which canmean some fiddling as you work
out the best angle from which to insert
the earbuds intoyourear canal. Once you
get used to theprocess, however,you’ll
have no probleminserting them –orleaving
them in forhours, as they’repleasantly light
and comfortable.
MISTAKESWERE MADE
We wish Sennheiser hadmade thetouch
controlslessfinicky, however.It’s all too
easy to perform the wrong inputwhen the
sensor needs to sharesomanydifferent
functions: one tapactivates Google Assistant,
two enables transparency mode and three
switches ANConoroff.
The good news is that you cancustomise
allofthe touch functions from the Sennheiser
Smart Control mobile appsothatthose you
use most aremost readilyaccessiblewith a
single tap.It’s fromthe mobile app,too,that
you cantoggle theearphones’ various smart
featuresonand off.Smart pause,which
pauses music automaticallywhenyou remove
an earbud from your ear, is enabled by default,
as is ‘Auto-accept call’,afeature that accepts
calls as soon as the right earbud is removed
from thechargingcase.
The appalso lets youswitch the
transparency modeonand off but, strangely,
there’s no waytocheck whether youhave
ANC or transparency enabled at aglance.
That’s frustrating, but hopefully something
that Sennheiser will addinthe future.
Other than ANC, theinternal hardware
remainslargely unchangedfromthe old
MomentumTrue Wireless,but that’s no bad
thing: those were some of thevery best-
soundingtruewireless headphones you
couldbuy.Assuch, theMomentumTrue
Wireless 2impress in allthe same areas.
There’s asense of space to the sound
output that belies theirdesign, and excellent
instrumentseparation helps make fortruly
engaging listening. Thesound signature is
neutral, but that doesn’t mean it’slacking in
bass:low-end frequenciesare as well
representedasmidsand treble,they’re just
not as overbearing as they can be with many
in-earBluetooth headphones.
STEREO SYSTEM
With support foraptX and AACvia Bluetooth
5.1, it’s possibletostream high-res audio from
arangeofdifferent devices. And,because the
earphonesuse aQualcomm QCC 5100 chip,
theyalso support Qualcomm’sTrueWireless
Stereo and StereoPlus protocols,which
promise improved battery efficiency along
with amorerobust connection with
ccoommppaattiibblleeAAndroid smartphones.
Theoonlyproblem is, ironically,alack
of reliability to the Bluetooth
connection. Forlongperiods, it
wwould be absolutely faultlessbut,
at times, we’d notice oneearbud
dropping outalittle despite
beingvery close to the source
device (in our case,anAndroid
smartphone) with no obvious
source of interference.
There’salso aslight audio
delaywhenwatching videos on
YYouTube or Netflix. This could
feasibly be fixed in afirmware
upddate, butright now the
MomeentumTrueWireless2are really
only suiteedtomusic.
On thatnnote, the bigaddition here is that
ANNCfunctioonality.Intermsofperformance, it
can be tricky to gauge theeffectbecause
in-ear headphones don’t get helpfrom the
same level of passive noise isolation as
over-ear headphones, but generally the ANC
does an admirable job.
It capably cut out the background noise of
office chatterand air-conditioning sounds
when indoors, and when we simulatedflight
conditions by loudlyplaying cabinsounds
through ahi-fisystem, the Momentum True
Wireless 2cut outmostofthe engine noise.
There’s no doubt thefeature is awelcome
addition, though it seems to offer diminishing
returns as youturnthe volume up louder,
more so than with over-ear or on-ear
headphones. If you’rethe sort of person
who always listens to music loudly,then, it
mightnot be avital feature foryou.
RICH SOUND
Irrespective of this andthe fewother niggles,
however, ourexperienceofSennheiser’s
MomentumTrue Wireless 2has been largely
positive.Theirsuperior comfort and sound
quality areenoughtomake them ago-to
choice even when the benefitsofgoing
all-wirelessaren’t as important, like when
you’re sitting at home.
As with the previousmodel, however,
there’s the thorny issue of theprice. If these
earbudscost closer to £200, they’d be a
must-have,but when you can buytwo pairs of
Sony’s superb WF-1000XM3 true wireless
headphones forjust £40 more than one pair of
these,itshows just how expensive theyare.
If moneyisnoobject,gobuy them and
you’ll almostcertainly be very pleased you
did –just remember that they’renot thelast
word in truewireless buds.
EdwardMunn
