The Sennheiser Smart Control Plus app is where you can customize ANC levels, transparency, an eight-band EQ, connection preferences, and Dolby Atmos. You can also save sound profiles based on your location, maxing out ANC when you hit the office, for instance.
Controls on the headphones themselves are touch controls on the right ear cup, and they work fine: as in, they didn’t annoy me. A tap pauses music, swipes adjust volume and skip tracks, while a double tap toggles between ANC and transparency modes.
Active Noise Cancellation comes via eight microphones, and it is good, verging on great. It works well on public transport, provides a cocoon in cafés, and gifts solitude in a shared office. If you’ve never used Sony or Bose ANC headphones, you’ll be delighted with the Momentum 5s, but if you’re switching from those two brands, you might find these a bit of a letdown. We’re talking small margins here, but the Momentum 5 just lacks that eerily quiet sealed-off feeling of the WH-1000XM6 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen).
Call quality is good too, and the wind-reducing mics kept my voice front and center, but it’s not the reason I’d buy these headphones.
I tested the Momentum 5 Wireless using the best and worst playback resolutions from Spotify—both over Wi-Fi and cellular. I also listened to Qobuz hi-resolution recordings and my own digital music library. And no matter what I played, the headphones offered me a smooth, refined, and expressive performance.
They’re not “high-fidelity” in the sense that the extreme edges of a recording are not exposed, and they happily make poor-quality output sound enjoyable. That said, you’ll get a bit more out of them by listening to higher-fidelity sources. And if you’re still playing the lowest-resolution audio playback on Spotify (or don’t even know what I am talking about), you don’t need to spend $399 on a pair of headphones.
Mixing it up between the pop of Olivia Rodrigo’s excellent new album, the twang of Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, via Wu-Tang, and more of the Police than I’m comfortable admitting, the Sennheiser made every genre enjoyable to listen to and were totally agreeable. They’re not neutral, with plenty of relaxed warmth to the sound profile.
Photograph: Chris Haslam