Comfort and daily use
Everyday Use
The first launch is quite simple. You can either connect the ears directly to your smartphone, via the usual Bluetooth set-up, or download Sennheiser’s Smart control app, which unlocks various options like :
- connection management, to see which devices you connected to your TWS,
- equalizer, to adjust the sound to your liking
- transparent hearing, if you want to hear your surroundings while wearing your TWS,
- noise-cancellation, to set the level of noise-attenuation you want to use
- monitor your TWS/charging box battery life
On the go, the new shape of the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 makes them the perfect companion. If I was a bit dubious at first, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily those ears glided into my ears, even compared to the AirPods Pro I usually wear. Sweat didn’t make a difference and compared to the V1 and V2, the V3 remained tightly in my ears, even when I ran. A very nice surprise!
The cherry on top, the tactile surface is less prone to register accidental moves, like the touch of my hair, and commanding the Momentum True Wireless 3 with those controls was quick and easy.
Isolation
As expected, it’s very good and definitely on par with the AirPods pro and Devialet Gemini. If you commute a lot, subway/train/plane, the Momentum Wireless 3 will create one of the best experiences you can get in this price range. Even for a simple walk, I ended up activating the noise-canceling to get to my own comfort zone.
The fact that you can modulate the level of noise-cancellation is more of a gimmick for me, but it seems like many listeners prefer to have control over this aspect, depending on the situation they are in.
Combined with the good comfort, I have to say those Momentum are a real step-up compared to the previous models – something I didn’t expect!
Battery life
Sennheiser claims 7h of continuous listening on a single charge and more than 28h with the case. A full charge takes 1.5h, but charging just 80% takes less than an hour, and you should be able to use them for a little less than a week.
In real-life usage, the Momentum is quite close to the official numbers, and I reached between 25 to 26h – more than enough on the go. Numbers? Each earbud embeds a 77mAh battery, and the charging box gets a 950mAh one.
Microphone
Last but not least, a quick note regarding the microphone. Sennheiser put three mics per earbuds, all with beamforming to capture the most accurate sound while speaking. I did a few phone calls and I found them superior to the AirPods Pro in this regard: my interlocutor always heard me loud and clear. Kudos Senn!
Bundle and Accessories
Inside the box
Like every other TWS, the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 bundle is quite dire. In the box you have :
- the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3
- four sets of silicons (Extra Small / Small / Medium / Large)
- three ear fin sets (Small / Medium / Large)
- the charging box
- an USB-C to USB-C cable
So yeah, a poor bundle, but nothing unexpected for a TWS.
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Specifications
For the nit-pickers and nerdy ones here, I’m giving the specs and technical sheets. For all the others, you can just go to the next page to see how the Momentum performs.
TrueResponse driver + proprietary DSP
Sennheiser always stood against multi-driver IEM, stating that kind of system introduces phase incoherence and unwanted distortion, so it’s no surprise to find a dynamic driver at the heart of the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3.
In fact, the brand embedded the same transducer found in the IE500 Pro and IE600: a 7mm wide TrueResponse dynamic driver. A driver advertised as “one of the world’s smallest high-performance dynamic drivers, with a diaphragm of only 7 mm in diameter to cover the entire frequency spectrum. A custom-made magnet system with triple-channel ventilation significantly reduces the distortion factor. Even at high sound pressure levels, the sound remains clean and free of distortion”.
Among that, Sennheiser perfected the DSP and added aptX Adaptive support to ensure the best performances, in Bluetooth, with the corresponding source. They shouldn’t be big changes compared to the previous model, but we’ll have to check on that later.
Full specs
- Type: True Wireless IEM
- Style: Dynamic Driver
- Drivers: 7mm TrueResponse
- Socket: Bluetooth 5.2 (SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive)
- Shell: Plastic (grey, white or black)
- Frequency Response: 5Hz – 21kHz
- THD+N: <0.008%
- Sound pressure: 107dB SPL
- Sound Isolation (up to): 37dB (noise-canceling on)
- Microphones: 3 mics per earbuds, beam forming for noise-reduction
- Battery: 77 mAh (earbud) / 950mAh (charging case)
- Battery life: 7h per session / 28h in total
- Price: €249
Page 1: Sennheiser overview, design & build quality
Page 2: Daily use, specifications
Page 3: Sound performances
Lord Sinister
Hi, hope all is well? An interesting review for sure but I’m very curious how the sound quality compares to Noble Fokus Pro, Lypertek Z7 and 1More Evo. Kindly provide if possible.
Thanks in advance!
Javier Gonzalez
This is a decent review and I can’t find much fault with it.
My issue I think is with the lack of consistency in this site’s review methodology.
This review hammers down the point that the Momentum True Wireless 3 is a much better sounding IEM than the previous iteration, yet somehow it doesn’t replace the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 in the list of best/recommended TWS.
As for the review itself, the comparison (if you can call it that) with the with AirPods Pro is useless. I apologize for the blanket generalization but my intuition is that most people coming to a site like Headphonia don’t use AirPods as reference.
What I want to know is the performance in its price bracket and or not it compares favorably with more expensive products like the Fokus Pro.
lovender
No Aptx Low Latency (LL) = No buy! I use Momentum TWS 1 that support aptx LL codec for gaming purpose. Aptx LL reach 40ms latency. But aptx Adaptive only reach 80ms latency. So, it’s a big NO for me. Sadly, TWS 1 is a defect product with its batery drain issue on the left earbud…
joe
you know that being aptx adaptive, those tws 3 fohave aptx-,LL…
so keep your Big No to you and lets other enjoy it 😉
Wolf Gang
What‘s “ASDR”? Is it a typo?
What‘s “mid end” supposed to express? The mid has no end. The may be high-end or low-end, but “mid end”?
Jay steph
1 big thing missing and it’s the audio quality, tge soecs abd battery kife can be great but if the headphones shounds like garbage so what’s the point, i think it’s a missed opportunity here and a review without the main thing headphones are used for is unprofessional and amature like.
Lieven
Thank you for your comment. However, before blaming someone of being an “Amature”, please learn to read (and write) first and read all the pages. The full part on Sound is on the last page of the article.
szoze
Aren’t you able to read and also click on a link where it says “Sound performance”? What an arrogant comment by someone who barely can write and obviously even can’t read and use the Internet.
Eric
I would like to see a comparison between these, the Sony WF-1000MX5’s, B&W Pi7’s and Status… could include another premium TW you wanted as well.
MheAd
MTW3 really sound great. And they also look freaking good! But the connectivity stability is bad. You’ll notice this even in home environment conditions if you even briefly go few meters away from the paired device.But biggest annoyance starts when you take them out for a walk on a busy street. This is especially noticable if you have them paired with a Qualcomm chip phone that supports AptX Adaptive. The main idea with AptX Adaptive is to have an oscillating, seamless kind of adjustment of bandwidth / quality, depending on conditions, which should not be noticable by human ear. But, at smallest distrubance (when other codecs would get a short “hickup”) AptX Adaptive implementation in MTW3 will drop the quality so aggressively that it will make the music sound lower, compressed, and more mono-like. Then it can take up to 10 secs before it recovers, until the next time it happens again. This is not AptX Adaptive by design. My Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2 with AptX Adaptive do not suffer from this. This is MTW3-thing. For this reason I have to enforce through an external app to use some lower bandwith codec, like regular AptX or AAC, to avoid this effect. Shame, cause, once again – I really love how the sound in disturbance free environment. I love to listen to 24/96khz sources on them when at home. The battery life is only mediocre – just above 5 hrs with ANC on. For the reasons described above I cannot recommend them to anyone who needs to use them for more than sporadic listening of music at home.