This is Sennheiser MTW4 😲 Still buy MTW3 now? - My thoughts
- Conjured by Aaron, 9th Jan 2024
A holy trinity of products were launched at CES 2024 by Sennheiser, including something we’ve been waiting for, the Momentum True Wireless 4, alongside the Momentum Sport and the Accentum Plus headphones.
Momentum True Wireless 4
The new MTW4s don’t look so different from the previous one, but Sennheiser says it’s got more than a dozen improvements over the previous model, the MTW3. So I’m assuming it may have better noise canceling, bluetooth connectivity… But at this moment, we don’t have specifics. What we do know is that it’s got a slightly improved total battery of up to 30 hours, AI-assisted voice pickup (so there’s possibly improved call quality) and that it runs on a newer Qualcomm chip, the S5 Sound Gen 2.
So this time it supports Snapdragon Sound which means with the right Android devices, you can stream over aptX Adaptive which is capable of streaming audio at high bandwidths or low latency depending on the content. Soon we’ll have more devices supporting it, but as of now the phone that I’m using for aptX Adaptive is the Sony Xperia 5 V.
Back to the MTW4. It supports Qualcomm’s future standard codec, LC3, so this means things like LE Audio and Auracast comes into play.
Auracast is awesome, really. The ability to stream that same audio to an unlimited number of bluetooth earbuds and headphones that support Auracast. This could mean getting flight announcements at the airport delivered directly to your earbuds, or the whole family wearing earbuds sharing the audio from a TV without waking the baby. Now, I don’t have a baby, but yes I have tried Auracast, and talked about it in this video.
Judging by how great the MTW3 was and this is supposed to be much better, I can’t wait to try and compare them. So if you were thinking whether to get the MTW3s now, I suggest you wait till that review before deciding.
The MTW4 costs $300, preorders start on February 15th, and it will be available in stores from the 1st of March.
Momentum Sport
Next we have the Momentum Sport with its built in heart rate and body temperature sensor which works with most of the popular fitness apps, and full integration with the Polar Flow app and Polar watches.
Looking at its design it seriously reminds me of the Conversation Clear Plus. I think that is great, because those wing tips will get the buds to fit pretty snugly.
Both the buds and the case are dust and water resistant, with up to 6 hours of battery in the buds, and up to 24 hours with case. What I’m not quite sure about is if it can deliver great noise canceling performance, since the Sport has a semi-open design. This usually means it doesn’t isolate you from background noise, which has an impact on active noise canceling.
That is apparently on purpose, because you’ll hear less noises from your own body such as footsteps, running steps and breathing. But at the same time, it’ll be interesting to see what it can do in terms of ANC when it comes out this April.
Oh, and it costs more than the MTW4s too, at $330.
Accentum Plus
Finally we have the Accentum Plus. In terms of price, the Accentum Plus sits somewhere in the middle between the basic Accentum model and the top-shelf Momentum 4 headphones.
It does look similar to the budget version. It has the same 37mm drivers and microphone setup, the same 50 hour battery, but is closer to the Momentum 4 headphones in terms of features, like having a physical audio jack, a travel case, and most of the M4’s software features.
If we’re talking about performance, based on the specs alone I don’t think it’s going to be much different from the Accentums, but when I reviewed those, I did think the Accentums are good value headphones. So who knows? Maybe for 50 bucks more, the Accentum Plus will surprise me. And it’s going to be available earlier than the MTW4, so you might see a review rather soon.
The Accentum Plus retails for $230. Available in stores from February 20th, 2024.
So those are the stuff Sennheiser just announced. Like I said, can’t wait to test them, and get back to you with reviews so if you don’t want to miss out on those, get subscribed to the main channel.
