Sennheiser Momentum 3 review: Fine music is back

The Momentum headphones are Sennheiser’s most popular consumer-oriented headset. They took a while to join the truly wireless earbuds game, but they went on to populate the market with Momentum earbuds and plenty of others in the more affordable range. The Momentum True Wireless 3 have come in after two-year hiatus with their next-generation earbuds. 

The Momentum 3 earbuds come in a fabric-covered case looking familiar to the owners of previous versions. The grey-black case is nice, solid and good looking, but there’s one thing I don’t like about it is when you reach out for it without looking carefully, you can’t tell, by sheer feel, which side it opens from. The USB slot is in from, on the opening side, and I’m used to be being on the oppose side, really. The case is quite solid, and the buds sit inside it without danger of falling out. 

The earbuds are on the large side, though they taper off entirely towards the side that goes into the ears. They look plain and straightforward with a self-design Sennheiser logo on the outer round part. You get extra ear-tips as well as wings for optional additional balance and fit, in the box. They do fit better than before, if I remember right, and don’t threaten to fall out, though you can’t lie down against a pillow to listen. They get dislodged. The buds are IPX4 splash resistant. 

The Momentum 3 TWS earbuds have a great sound profile. They are just the thing for complex music as you can hear detail and separation and, above all, clarity. The sound is natural and pleasant. These are for those looking for some finesse and elegance in the sound quality rather than anyone who just wants the delivery of a solid thump for bass. There is adequate bass and an equaliser in the Smart Connect app that allows you to make presets and save them. You can also use a ‘sound zones’ feature to associate sound profiles with a certain location. For instance, a profile with energetic bass when you go to the gym. Or higher treble when you want to hear speech clearly on phone calls at the office. I found my favourite genres sounding rather good on these earbuds. The jazz was nice and elegant. I also listened to some jazz-gone-classical, slow whiskey blues, deep house, and all sorts of fusion. 

These TWS earbuds support AAC and SBC codecs on Bluetooth 5.2. They also support AptX Adaptive for hi-resolution music, provided you have the playback source and service in order. The sound presets, after you do a sound test, can adapt to your environment. 

The active noise cancellation is not as powerful as I’ve found on other expensive earbuds. I can still hear consistent sounds like the whirring of a fan, for example, though it’s softened. Noise cancellation is adaptive and adjusts to where you happen to go. There’s a transparency mode, of course, and all of this is adjustable from within the redesigned app. From there too, you can set what you want the on-bud buttons to do. These are very responsive and nice to use, incidentally, and you can do all the usual controls, including ANC, music and volume navigation and the virtual assistant. One earbud at a time does work, and there is on-ear detection present. 

You have seven hours of listening on a charge and 28 hours. A ten-minute charge will give you a bonus hour. Wireless charging is now supported too. 

The Momentum 3 wireless is priced competitively at ₹21,990

Published on

May 19, 2022