Updated Sennheiser flagship earbuds boast improved features and lower price

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The Sennheiser Momentum 3 wireless buds have a sleeker design, better ANC and a wireless charging case.
The Sennheiser Momentum 3 wireless earbuds have a sleeker design, better ANC and a wireless charging case.
Photo: Sennheiser

Sennheiser first put out its top-tier Momentum True Wireless earbuds in 2018 to rave reviews about sound quality. Next came a 2020 update and now, with a new release, we see a substantial redesign with the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds.

They offer substantial upgrades at a lower-than-expected price, compared to the starting price of their predecessors.

The German maker released the new flagship buds along with its new Sport True Wireless earbuds for athletic types who want to filter out the sound of their own huffing and puffing.

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Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds

The third update in the Momentum True Wireless earbud series sees a significant redesign the new Momentum 3 buds. As predicted in a recent leak predicting features and more, they’ll be available starting May 10 in black, graphite and white colors. But the cost is lower than expected — $249.95.

The Momentum True Wireless 3 buds look more like the German brand’s CX and CX Plus True Wireless versions than they do the Momentum 2 buds. That suggests the company has settled on a universal design language with sleeker designs and more emphasis on comfort with its more recent offerings.

The new earbuds now have a rubberized exterior ridge, like a small fin, to help with fit.

The fabric-covered case is similar in shape and size to previous versions. However, Sennheiser has moved the USB-C charging port to the front. That’s more convenient in some situations. The new case also supports wireless charging, a glaring omission in previous models. Most people would expect wireless charging at this premium price point.

Improved comfort, ANC and call quality

Sennheiser said its latest earbuds also offer improvements to comfort, active noise cancellation and call quality.

With the upgrade, Sennheiser implemented adaptive noise cancellation. That allows the Momentum True Wireless 3s to automatically adjust the degree of noise cancellation based on surroundings. The company said the “system continuously observes ambient noise to suppress it in real time.” However, users can still manually adjust it as desired.

Each of the earbuds now contains three microphones, which the company said provides noticeable improvements and “crystal clear quality” for voice and video calls.

Battery life and audio quality

But in two key areas Sennheiser made no major upgrades. Those are battery life and audio quality.

Battery life remains at seven hours of continuous playback with the charging case allowing an additional 21 hours. Momentum True Wireless 3 buds are IPX4 certified for water resistance. You can sweat on them during a workout and wear them in light rain.

The earbuds continue to use the company’s 7-millimeter drivers, made in Germany.

You can use Sennheiser’s mobile app to take a listening test to better personalize the bass, midrange and treble with the earbuds, which support AAC, SBC, and aptX Adaptive Bluetooth codecs. That should reduce latency when using the buds with devices that use aptX Adaptive, which reaches higher bitrates than AAC.

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds are set for release May 10. You can preorder them now for $249.95, about $50 less than the release price of the previous version.

Where to preorder: Sennheiser or Amazon

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