We went hands-on with Sennheiser's latest headphones, and they're an impressive alternative to big players like Bose and Sony

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Sennheiser has long been one of the most trusted brands among hi-fi enthusiasts, particularly for the high-end market. Take the HE-1, a pair of fabulously expensive headphones that cost $60,000 and come with their own amplifier mounted to a block of solid Carrara marble. But Sennheiser’s reputation for audiophile audio and professional gear has made the brand’s everyday headphones almost underrated, compared to more well-known portable audio brands like Bose, Sony, and Apple.

Yet Sennheiser’s latest Momentum 5 headphones make a compelling case for being the best everyday over-ear headphones on the market. They’re more comfortable than Sony’s XM6 model, with a longer battery life and comparably excellent sound. Sennheiser also made some major improvements to noise canceling to bring these headphones up to par with their peers.

At $400, they’re $50 to $60 less than Bose and Sony’s flagships at retail and $150 less than Apple’s AirPods Max over-ears. That isn’t cheap, but it’s a better price for flagship headphones than what the market has been trending towards. Here’s why they might just be the best everyday noise-canceling headphones you can buy.

Design and Construction

You could easily mistake Sennheiser’s Momentum 5 headphones for the nearly identical Momentum 4s, released in 2022. The headphones, featuring a fabric headband and metal accents, still look and feel high-end, if somewhat anonymous.

They’re a far cry from the bold retro look of the Momentum 3 headphones released in 2019, but what they lack in flair they make up for in comfort. The earpads are plush, and the headband is sufficiently padded. They have enough clamping force to feel secure, without making me feel like my head is in a vise.

There are some design improvements, most notably to the case. It has been significantly slimmed down, with a cutout in the back that makes it easy to carry. The headphones’ earcups rotate inward and outward, but the hinges don’t fold, so the case is still fairly wide, but it’s much more portable than the previous iteration. The case also has slots for the 3.5mm cable and the USB-C charging cable, plus a mesh pocket for storing other accessories.

One of the biggest sustainability-focused features is the addition of a new user-replaceable battery, which boasts up to 57 hours of total playtime. All batteries eventually wear out, and being able to replace them without having to send the headphones in for service is a huge plus. Some niche headphone brands have made replaceable batteries a feature, but Sennheiser might be the biggest brand to adopt this approach.

Controls and Features

The headphones have fairly intuitive swipe controls on the right earcup; a single tap controls playback, swiping up and down raises and lowers the volume, and double-tapping toggles between noise-canceling and transparency modes. You can also adjust the transparency level with a pinching motion on the earcups. The controls are capable and intuitive, if overly sensitive. I sometimes find myself accidentally pausing the music when adjusting the headphones, and the controls themselves can’t be customized (although they can be turned off).

The app is comprehensive and easy to use, with an eight-band customizable EQ or presets for genres like rock, pop, hip-hop, and classical. You can also add “zones” in the app; the headphones can automatically switch to noise-canceling when you get to the train station and back to transparency when you get back home, for example. There’s a similar feature used by Sony’s app, although some users (myself included) might be hesitant to give location permissions to a headphone app.

The headphones can also be set to automatically power off after 15, 30, or 60 minutes, a handy battery-saving feature.

Sound Quality and Noise-Canceling

Sennheiser’s claim to fame is its audio bona fides, and the brand delivers here. The headphones feature detailed, engaging audio that’s punchy without being tilted too far toward bass. You can adjust the EQ further in the app, but the default “neutral” sound profile was enjoyable across a range of tracks, from Vince Staples’ booming “Blackberry Marmalade” to Big Thief’s glittering “Incomprehensible.”

Sennheiser also supports Dolby Atmos; I’m not a fan of most spatial audio mixes, and unfortunately these headphones haven’t changed my view, but it has increasingly become an expected feature on many Bluetooth headphones.

The headphones also support high-bitrate audio codecs like Qualcomm AptX for high-resolution audio over Bluetooth. You can also switch between codecs in the app, though this feature is limited for iPhone users, as Apple only supports its own high-resolution codec.

Noise-canceling is the big headline here; Sennheiser seriously stepped up its game, making it easier to justify the otherwise marginal improvements elsewhere. The headphones’ transparency mode allows for awareness, while the noise-canceling cuts out wind, ambient noise, and conversations. It’s not quite the monastic silence you get from rivals like Bose and Sony, but it’s competitive; I wore these headphones outside and took several minutes to realize a loud orbital sander was in use less than 20 feet behind me.

Verdict

With improved noise-canceling and a handful of small improvements, on top of already great audio quality, Sennheiser’s latest Momentum headphones are a seriously impressive pair of headphones. The long battery life is a standout, as is the all-day comfort, making them among the best headphones for travel. And the German brand deserves kudos for making the battery user-replaceable.

There are some quirks, like the overly sensitive touch controls, but it’s hard to find much else to dislike about these headphones — if comfort, sound quality, and noise canceling are your top considerations, these rank among the best on the market.