Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Price - Both are currently $399USD at the time of this review. Design - I slightly prefer the looks of the Bose while on my head. It’s more streamlined and minimalistic. The Sennheiser’s look more elegant with the steel and leather materials when off the head or when on the head from a side view. However, the exposed wiring looks kinda funky on the head from a front view (hence why none of the promo pics show the model wearing these headphones from a front view. They’re always looking towards the side.) Both are built well with no worries that one will break easily from normal usage. The Momentum’s takes the slight edge here in overall build quality because of the authentic leather on the ear-pads and headband. The Bose can fold flat which results in a much smaller profile when stowed away in its hard shell carrying case. The Sennheiser’s can also fold, but not flat. Sennheiser’s carrying case is about twice the thickness of the Bose and it’s not a hard shell material so the Sennheiser’s face a higher chance of crush damage while being in your bag. Controls - Bose went with touch controls while Sennheiser retained the tried and true button configurations. Both headphones allow controls of your volume, play and pause media and call accept, hang up and hold. Both thankfully have a dedicated voice assistant button however, the Bose allows for always on and listening Alexa. Both can toggle between ANC modes, but the Bose allows for 3 different ANC preset switching out of the 11 different options while the Sennheiser’s allow for only ANC on or off and ambient mode. The Bose surprisingly doesn’t allow you to turn off the ANC from the headphone. In order to turn off the ANC on the Bose, you have to do that from the app. The touch controls on the Bose is pretty responsive and I don’t really have issues with it. Time will tell if they suffer the same fate with random triggers and inputs when in cold temperatures like the Sony WH1000Xm3. The button controls on the Sennheiser’s is tactile and works as it should. So it really depends if you prefer buttons or touch controls here. Comfort - I prefer the Sennheiser slightly here. It’s lighter and just hugs my head with enough pressure to not fall off with any sudden head movements. The ear-pads opening is generous and allows my ears to go in all the way and not be clamped down. The Bose is quite comfortable but they clamp a little harder on my head. I can wear both for 2 hours straight but the Sennheiser’s just leaves my head not feeling as fatigued. Battery Life - Bose takes the cake here. Longer 20 hour battery vs. the Sennheiser’s 17 hours. Also, from a quick 10 minute charge the Bose can receive a longer charge at 3 hours vs the Sennheiser’s 1.5 hours. Both charge via USB-C. Bluetooth - Sennheiser’s take the cake here in terms of codec support. NFC support is on the Sennheiser’s but not the Bose. Sennheiser also support AptX-LL which is great for those who might want to play video games if they have a AptX-LL equipped receiver or device. In terms of YouTube, Netflix and Hulu, I haven’t detected any lip sync issues while watching videos on either pair of headphones. Both support AAC and SBC, but the Bose does not support AptX. Connectivity and range has been pretty great on both and I haven’t had any crazy issues while using both on the bus, subway, walking through NYC, at the office and at home. Both support 2 device connections simultaneously. I prefer the Bose implementation because it switches between devices more seamlessly in my experience and the voice prompts tells you the name of the device it is connected to or has disconnected from. The Sennheiser’s voice prompt just says “phone 1 connected/disconnected” or “phone 2 connected/disconnected” which isn’t really helpful if you’re like me and have a desk with a MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and iPhone XS Max on it. Both can conveniently be put into pairing mode from one of the buttons on the control side of the headphone’s ear-cups. Call quality - Bose is still number 1 here. Callers continue to tell me they can hear my clearly despite me being right next to a bus engine on my commute to work. Meanwhile on the Sennheiser’s, callers said they can hear the bus engine and I need to speaker up louder in the same environment, but they can still hear me unlike the Sony WH1000Xm3 which is completely horrible in these situations. Both perform exceptionally well when giving commands to Siri or Google Assistant. If you’re in a quiet to moderately loud environment, they’re both gonna do well in calls. The Bose just sets itself apart in noisy environments due to the excellent microphone array and the ability to cancel out background noises. Both have a convenient feature to mute your microphone while on the call using the voice control button on the Bose and the volume down button on the Sennheiser’s. Features - Both do the basics for a 2019 premium ANC headphone. Bose has significantly more control over its ANC system (albeit a bit overkill). The Bose has 11 presets with 0 being ambient aware mode and 10 being maximum noise cancelling. Also, on the Bose there’s a button to toggle between 3 saved ANC presets from the app which leverages on the fly adaptation to your environment. Sennheiser’s approach is to either have the ANC on at max intensity or on with wind reduction or lower cabin pressure, ANC off or transparency/ambient mode with the ability to have audio play as well or not. The ambient mode is slightly superior on the Bose. The Bose makes your ambient environment sound like you don’t have headphones on and it comes off as very natural. The Sennheiser’s sound slightly digital but very good nonetheless. As for noise cancelling, Bose is easily superior in terms of suppressing the noises around you. With the Sennheiser’s, I can still hear a decent amount of what’s going on around me while I’m commuting or walking through the city. With the Bose, the world literally melts away when the noise canceling is engaged and I can faintly hear what’s going on around me. When music is playing for the most part they will both block out everything around you typical in a commuting situation unless you listen at low volumes or there’s a quiet passage in the music or media in which the Sennheiser’s weaker ANC will cause loud outside noise to seep in. Sound - I enjoy listening to both. The device I used is my MacBook Pro streaming AptX to the Sennheiser’s and AAC to the Bose. The Sennheiser is the more bass heavy, richer, spacious and warmer sounding of the two. The Bose is very balanced and neutral to my ears. Very high levels of clarity and detail can be heard on both sets, but the Sennheiser’s slightly edges the Bose in immediate detail and clarity. Soundstage is superior on the Sennheiser’s whereas everything just has this multidimensional and spacious presentation. The music sounds more like a live performance on Sennheiser’s as opposed to listening in a studio like on the Bose. The separation of the instruments within the music is great on both, but the Bose sounds more dynamically compressed in comparison to the Sennheiser. The superior dynamics of the Sennheiser’s aides in the ability to replicate a more convincing sense of space between instruments. The Sennheiser’s bass is very powerful and well extended. It’s a healthy bass boost but it is centered in the sub-bass region which mitigates bass bleed into the midrange. The Bose has a more neutral bass that can bottom out and distort when pushed to high volumes. The Sony WH1000Xm3 in comparison has a bass boost mostly in the upper and mid bass which blooms over into the mids and makes them sound boomy overall. The Sennheiser’s get louder than the Bose and Sony’s and don’t distort at max volume which is a plus if you like to listen at those volumes. The Bose and Sony’s at max volume can distort on some tracks regardless if ANC is on or off. No, I don’t believe in burn-in (If you’re getting ready to say I didn’t have the Sennheiser’s long enough). I’ve listened to countless brand new headphones and a highly used one of the same model and they always sound and measure the exact same. Conclusion - The Sennheiser’s have a special spot in my collection even though compared to the Bose, It performs worse overall in ANC performance, isn’t as comfortable to my head, has a worse overall battery performance, looks elegant but a bit uglier in my opinion than the streamlined look of the Bose, doesn’t perform as well for calls, has less overall controllability from the headphones and it’s bulkier to carry around due to the much larger case that provides less protection than the Bose. Why? Because despite all that it still does the essentials required from a modern day 2019 pair of ANC wireless headphones all while packing the best sound experience in this category to my ears. Great job Sennheiser. You’ve managed to incorporate a better microphone for voice pickup and 2 device Bluetooth connectivity (something the overrated Sony WH1000Xm3 couldn’t do), a decent and controllable ANC with ambient modes and good comfort alongside your signature sound. Color me impressed!