Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 at Rs 17,990 on Croma — Why These Are the Best Sounding Earbuds I Have Ever Used
I need to be upfront about something. I'm biased towards Sennheiser. Have been for years. My first "real" pair of headphones was a Sennheiser HD 206 that I bought from a small electronics shop in Nehru Place, Delhi, back in college. Cost me about Rs 1,500 and completely changed how I thought about audio. So when the Momentum True Wireless 4 landed on my desk, yeah I was excited. But also a little nervous — because at Rs 17,990 (discounted from Rs 24,990 on Croma), these need to justify a price that could buy you four or five pairs of perfectly decent earbuds from other brands.
Spoiler: they justify it. Not easily, not for everyone, but if you care about how music actually sounds — like really care, not just "yeah the bass is nice" care — these are in a completely different league from anything else you can put in your ears without wires.
HDFC Bank credit card holders get an additional Rs 1,500 instant discount on Croma right now, which brings the effective price to Rs 16,490. And if you have an SBI card, there is a 10% cashback offer up to Rs 2,500 on Croma purchases. Between those two bank deals, you're looking at some of the best pricing these earbuds have ever seen in India.
Sound Quality — This Is Where Sennheiser Earns Every Rupee
Let me just say it plainly. The Momentum TW4 is the best sounding TWS earbud I've used. Period. I've tested the Sony WF-1000XM5, the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds, the Apple AirPods Pro 2, the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro — all of them. Its Sennheiser wins on pure audio quality and it isn't particularly close.
The 7mm TrueResponse transducers produce a sound that's neutral but never boring. Some people hear "neutral" and think flat, lifeless, clinical. That isn't what this is. This is music presented the way the artist and the mixing engineer intended you to hear it. Nothing boosted, nothing suppressed, nothing colored. And within that neutrality there's incredible detail and warmth.
I put on "Kun Faya Kun" from the Rockstar soundtrack — A.R. Rahman's masterpiece. The Sufi vocals had this ethereal quality to them. I could hear the room reflections in the recording, the subtle breaths between phrases, the way the tabla sits slightly to the left in the mix while the harmonium fills the center. On most earbuds, this track sounds like a wall of sound. Beautiful, sure, but flat. On the Momentum TW4, it sounds like you're sitting in a recording studio. Every instrument has its own space.
Then I switched to something completely different — "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. The synths had this sparkle and width to them that I have only heard on proper over-ear headphones before. One bass line was tight and punchy without bleeding into the mids. A vocals sat perfectly above the instrumentation. I caught myself turning the volume up not because it was too quiet but because I wanted to hear more of what these drivers could do.
Classical music is where the TW4 really shows off though. I played some Ravi Shankar sitar recordings and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata back to back. The transient response — how quickly the driver starts and stops moving — is outstanding. Every sitar pluck has attack and decay. Every piano note rings and fades naturally. You can hear the difference between a soft press and a firm press on the piano keys. This is the kind of detail retrieval that makes audiophiles giddy.
aptX Lossless — CD Quality Without Wires
The aptX Lossless codec is the headline feature for audio nerds and rightfully so. With a compatible source device, you get 16-bit 44.1kHz audio transmitted wirelessly — that's actual CD quality. No compression, no quality loss. Now you do need a phone or DAP that supports aptX Lossless for this to work, and honestly not many Android phones do yet. But if you have one that does, or if you use an external Bluetooth transmitter with aptX Lossless support, the difference is real. I A/B tested with aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless using a Snapdragon-based phone and the lossless version had slightly better instrument separation and a more natural treble.
For everyone else, aptX Adaptive still sounds excellent. And even on AAC, these earbuds sound better than most competitors do on their best codec. The driver quality matters more than the codec in most real-world listening, and the TrueResponse transducers are simply outstanding.
Noise Cancellation — Not the Absolute Strongest But Extremely Smart
I'll be honest here because I think too many reviews gloss over this. The ANC on the Momentum TW4 is very, very good but it is not the absolute strongest you can get. That Sony XM5 blocks slightly more noise at maximum ANC. Each Bose QC Ultra is maybe a touch better at cancelling deep bass rumble. If pure noise blocking is your number one priority above everything else, those two are marginally ahead.
But — and this is a big but — the Sennheiser's ANC is smarter and more pleasant to use on a daily basis. The Adaptive mode reads your environment and adjusts in real time. It doesn't just have an on/off switch like some cheap earbuds. Walking through Connaught Place in Delhi with traffic noise all around? ANC ramps up. Sitting in a quiet library at JNU? What pulls back so you don't get that weird pressurized feeling in your ears that heavy ANC causes. Our transitions between levels are smooth. You barely notice them.
The Anti-Wind mode is something I appreciate a lot because I walk a lot outdoors. Delhi winter evenings can get quite windy and normal ANC modes create this awful buffeting sound when wind hits the microphones. My Anti-Wind mode handles it beautifully. No more "whooshing" in your ears when a gust hits.
Transparency mode is where Sennheiser really pulls ahead though. This is the most natural sounding passthrough I've experienced on any TWS earbud. When you switch to Transparency, it actually sounds like you aren't wearing earbuds at all. There's no robotic quality, no artificial amplification of certain frequencies. Just the natural world around you. I ordered chai from a street vendor in Chandni Chowk without removing the earbuds and could hear every word perfectly. That's how good the Transparency mode is.
Build Quality and the Famous Fabric Case
Sennheiser is a German company and the Momentum line has always reflected that. Precision engineering, premium materials, no corners cut. The earbuds themselves have ceramic touch panels on the outside that feel cool and smooth under your finger. No cheap plastic here. Your matte finish on the body resists fingerprints well and the overall construction feels like something that will last years, not months.
The charging case. Oh man, the charging case. It's wrapped in this premium fabric material — reminds me of those high-end Bluetooth speakers from brands like Bang and Olufsen. It looks and feels expensive. When you put it on a table at a cafe people notice it. Its hinge mechanism has a satisfying click. One magnets that hold the earbuds in place are strong. Everything about this case screams quality.
The downside? It isn't the smallest case out there. Bigger than the Sony XM5 case, bigger than the AirPods Pro case. Something fits in a jeans pocket but just barely. If you wear slim fit jeans — which let's be real a lot of us do — it might create a noticeable bulge. I usually keep it in my laptop bag or jacket pocket instead.
IP54 rating covers dust and splash resistance. Not the highest rating out there but enough for daily use. I wouldn't go running in heavy Mumbai monsoon rain with these but gym sweat and accidental splashes aren't going to be a problem.
Comfort — Big Earbuds But Surprisingly Wearable
At 6.2 grams per earbud, these are on the heavier side for TWS. For comparison, the Nothing Ear (3) is 4.8 grams and the AirPods Pro 2 is about 5.3 grams. You can feel the extra weight initially. But Sennheiser has done a good job with the ergonomic design. The earbuds sit snugly in your ear canal without creating excessive pressure. They come with four sizes of silicone ear tips and finding the right fit took me about two minutes of trying different sizes.
I wore them for a four-hour work session — coding with music on at my desk in a WeWork in Gurugram — and didn't feel any discomfort. After about five hours though, I did start to notice some ear fatigue. For most people and most use cases, comfort won't be an issue. But if you have smaller ear canals or are very sensitive to in-ear pressure, I would recommend trying these in-store at Croma before buying.
Battery Life and Charging
Battery life is rated at 7.5 hours per earbud with ANC on. In my testing, I consistently got around 7 hours with ANC at moderate levels, which is close enough to the claim. The case adds another 22.5 hours for a total of about 30 hours. That's competitive with the best in the market. Not the longest — the JBL Live 770NC headphones obviously crush this with 65 hours — but for TWS earbuds, 30 hours total is more than enough for a week of use without thinking about charging.
Qi wireless charging support is a nice touch. I've a wireless charger on my desk and just drop the case on it whenever I take the earbuds out. Never have to think about cables. USB-C fast charging is also available if you need a quick top-up — about 8 minutes of charging gives you an hour of playback.
The Sennheiser Smart Control App
The app deserves its own section because it's one of the better companion apps I've used. That standout feature is the parametric EQ. Not a basic 3-band or 5-band EQ that most audio apps give you. A full parametric equalizer where you can adjust specific frequency bands, set Q values, and really fine-tune the sound to your preferences. If you're an audio engineer or just someone who likes to tweak things, this is amazing.
There's also a Sound Check feature that plays a series of tones and adjusts the EQ based on your hearing profile. It's similar to what some other brands offer but the Sennheiser implementation feels more thorough. After running the Sound Check, I noticed vocals became slightly more prominent and the overall sound felt more tailored to my ears. Subtle but real.
ANC levels, gesture controls, firmware updates — all accessible from the app. Clean interface, no unnecessary features, loads quickly. This is how companion apps should be.
Bank Offers and Best Price Tips
- HDFC Bank Credit Card on Croma: Rs 1,500 instant discount, effective price Rs 16,490
- SBI Credit Card on Croma: 10% cashback up to Rs 2,500
- ICICI Bank EMI: No-cost EMI for 3, 6, or 9 months available on Croma
- Croma Gift Card: If you bought Croma gift cards during a sale, stack them for additional savings
The Honest Downsides
At Rs 17,990 — even with bank discounts — these are expensive. No two ways about it. You could buy a OnePlus Buds Pro 3 AND a boAt Airdopes for the same money. For most casual listeners who mainly use earbuds for calls, podcasts, and casual Spotify listening, the Sennheiser is overkill.
The size is another issue. Both the earbuds and the case are bigger than average. People with smaller ears might struggle with the fit. And the lack of multipoint Bluetooth connectivity out of the box is frustrating at this price point. You cannot connect to your laptop and phone simultaneously without fiddling with settings. For Rs 17,990, that should be a standard feature.
Call quality is good but not outstanding. Jabra still does it better. In noisy environments, the beam-forming microphones work hard but the person on the other end can sometimes hear background noise. Perfectly fine for most situations but if you take a lot of work calls from noisy places, the Jabra Elite 10 Gen 2 might be a better pick for you specifically.
Who Is This Actually For?
Music lovers. Real ones. The ones who can tell the difference between a 256kbps AAC stream and a lossless FLAC file. Each ones who have strong opinions about whether Harman target is the right tuning curve. If that sounds like you, stop reading reviews and go buy the Momentum TW4 from Croma. At Rs 17,990 with the HDFC discount bringing it down further, this is the most affordable these have been since launch. If you're in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, or Hyderabad, you can walk into a Croma store and try them before buying — I strongly recommend doing that because hearing is believing with these earbuds.
