Sennheiser is one of my favorite audio companies. Its Momentum TW are among the best-sounding true wireless earbuds we’ve ever tested. Its 13-speaker beast of a soundbar, the Ambeo Soundbar, sounds simply incredible. And its previous noise-canceling headphones, the Momentum Wireless 2 (also called the HD1 Wireless), were simple-yet-fantastic. Obviously, there’s a catch with all of these products and that’s price. Sennheiser makes high-end audio products and they are accordingly expensive.
That’s a trend that holds true with its latest noise-canceling headphones, the Momentum Wireless 3. Of course, $400 isn’t unheard of when it comes to noise-canceling headphones; Bose and Bowers & Wilkins both released noise-canceling headphones in 2019 that cost $400, while Master & Dynamic’s own MW65 cost $500. The thing with Sennheiser’s new noise-canceling headphones is that they carry the company’s premium sound quality, but maybe more importantly, they don’t look like any other noise-canceling headphones on the market. It also should be noted that they’re decidedly better than Momentum Wireless 2 in almost every way.
The Good: Sennheiser’s second-generation noise-canceling headphones, the Momentum Wireless 2, were decidedly simple. They didn’t have any advanced features and won’t let you adjust the noise-canceling at all (it was always on, whether you liked it or not) – and the new Momentum Wireless 3 are definitely not that. They have optical sensors to automatically play and pause music when you place and remove the headphones on your head. There’s now a companion app that lets you adjust EQ and levels of noise-cancellation, as well as select a virtual assistant. There’s a transparency mode. They charge via USB-C (thank goodness). And then even have a Tile integration to help you find the headphones should you misplace them.
But that doesn’t mean Sennheiser has completely abandoned old-school touches that are still terrific for their simplicity. The headphones still have physical buttons to adjust volume, answer calls and adjust the noise-cancellation. As somebody who dislikes the ambiguity and lack of feedback that comes part and parcel with the swipe gestures you find on the Sony WH-1000M3 or Bose’s Headphones 700, I really appreciate this restraint. And yet the Momentum Wireless 3 still have the new features that I like too, like how they start playing every time I put them on, pause when I take them off and shut off completely when I fold them up. It’s equal parts intuitive and pleasant.
If you’ve ever used Sennheiser’s previous noise-canceling headphones, maybe the biggest upgrade with the new models is comfort. Sennheiser decked the Momentum Wireless 3 with huge, plush leather earcups. Not only does the extra padding make the earbuds a heck of a lot more comfortable – I had no issues wearing them for long stretches during work – but its density also lends itself to passive noise isolating; not as much outside noise gets in, thus these headphones sound better. But as a downside, this extra padding really makes these headphones look big on your head.
