There are times in life when you want to actually hear things the way they were intended. Be it a piece of music that brings back memories of a momentous event or you want to immerse yourself in a horror film or really loose yourself in a game. For these occasions you need a decent pair of headphones, not just what came in the box with your phone or tablet, you want something special.
Sennheiser are a brand I regard as offering quality products for all price ranges, I’ve owned several pairs of earphones and headphones of theirs over the years, so when they sent the Momentum On-Ear 2.0 I was a little excited.
Design
The headphones come in a nice soft touch carry case, in side the case the headphones neatly fold up into place. The headphones aren’t huge which is pleasant as I always feel you look a little strange with huge over ear headphones on at times.
The Momentum 2.0 are made of a mix of metal and leather, the arms are a brushed stainless steel that feels really solid and the hinge between them and the headband is made of the same stuff and again it is really solid. Left and Right and marked clearly on the inside of the hinge.
The headband is made of firm leather with a nice padded section on top of your head, it is formed by two strips, which feel quite strong.
The cans themselves are made of a gunmetal coloured plastic on the back with the Sennheiser logo proudly displayed, the ear pads are on ear and feel just great. The headband doesn’t excerpt a huge force on your head which you’d expect to mean that you’d struggle to hear but you don’t. In actual fact it means you can wear them for extended periods and not feel like your head is in a clamp. The cans are adjustable in their positioning, you can move them up and down the metal arms to suit the size of your head and interestingly you can also move them around to really make them fit perfectly, you can finely adjust forward backwards or at an angle thanks the way they are mounted on the arms.
The padding on the ears is really nice, if padding could give pleasure it would look like this, it is a soft leathery material that just feels damn nice. The material is called Alcantara which is a kind of super soft suede type of material. It is often used in luxury cars. Either way it just feels great.
The right ear has a 3.5mm socket on it with locking tab. You insert the cable and then twist it into place, this means that the cable won’t just rip out by accident. It also means you can’t use a longer replacement cable. Not that you need to as the cable is long enough anyway.
The other end of the cable is a right angled gold plated plug, which is nice as I prefer 90^ connectors. Up near the ear there is a inline control which offers you the ability to control the volume, play/pause and it also has a microphone as well, so you can take/make calls using the headphones.
Overall the design and build of the headphones is really nice, it shouts premium at you from the second you open the box. The adjustable cans and the soft material on the ear pads makes them a pleasure to use.
Specs
- Frequency Response: 16-22000 Hz.
- Impednace: 18 Ω.
- Sound Pressure Level: 112 dB.
- Total Harmonic Distortion: <0.5%(1 KHz, 100dB).
- Pick-up pattern: Omni-Directional.
- Sensitivity: -44 dB V/Pa.
- Closed Supra-aural.
In Use
The Momentum headphones being wired are very easy to set up, plug one end in, plug the other end in, put them on your head. You get the picture.
There is one part of the headphones that is a little different though and that is the inline controls. The basic functionality is volume control and play/pause. The centre button however does also allow you to move forwards through your track list as well. This is done by single or double clicking the central button. The inline controls also have a microphone on the back too so you can make/take calls with the headphones, this time a single click accepts a call and a 2 second long press of the centre button rejects the call.
I listen to a lot of podcasts, an awful lot of Drum and Bass and I also listen to more normal music as well. However I do like to actually hear what the music should sound like, without having to mess with EQ levels and the like. These headphones really coped well, for bass driven music they responded with a depth, clarity and eagerness that you’d normally expect from a real life hifi not a pair of headphones. Coupled with the comfy earpads they were a joy to use. However if you do play about with the EQ of your device you can really blow your own socks off with the bass.
For listening to podcasts they were great, the depth of the sound really lent itself to spoken words, they really became essential for me to listen to a podcast or two.
The wire was nice and long meaning I could easily place my device on a desk and listen to music or even in my pocket. Having Bluetooth would have been nice, but that would bump the price up.
Conclusion
The Sennheiser Momentum 2nd Generation headphones were an absolute joy to use, the quality of sound was great, the comfort of the headphones was great enabling me to wear them for ages without discomfort and the fact I could fold them up and shove them in my bag was handy too. Sennheiser do market these as a Samsung Galaxy accessory, with support for LG, HTC, Sony and other Android Tablets and Smartphones. I tested it with my Note 4, Moto G, HTC One M8, Desire 816 and an Archos phone all without issue. If you want to use them with an Apple perhaps opt for a different model.
For £169.99 they may seem steep, but you are getting an incredibly well put together piece of kit that sounds amazing.
You can buy them from either the Sennheiser website here.