Sennheiser took almost four years to replace the Momentum 4. In that gap Sony shipped the WH-1000XM6, Apple shipped AirPods Max 2, and Bose shipped another QuietComfort Ultra. Chris Haslam’s WIRED review of the Momentum 5, published this week, is the first full look at whether that wait produced a flagship or a late homework assignment.
The two headphones land on the same $400 shelf. Mashable had the XM6 around $398 in a late-August travel roundup. The Momentum 5 is $399 at Amazon, B&H, and Sennheiser’s own shop. Price is a tie. The split is repairability and battery on one side, noise cancellation on the other.
This is not a rerun of our Momentum 4 vs AirPods Max 2 piece. That was last-gen Sennheiser against Apple’s metal cans. This is the new Momentum against the ANC champion we already put next to JBL’s Tour One M3.
Battery and the part you can actually unscrew
Sennheiser claims up to 57 hours with ANC on. Haslam did not run a lab drain test. He did wear them daily for a month and still sat around 50 percent, which is the kind of real-world number that makes the spec feel less fictional. WIRED notes that 57 hours is almost double the XM6 and the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3, three hours short of the older Momentum 4, and 13 hours behind the similarly priced Marshall Monitor III ANC.
Sony has never competed on “forget to charge for a week.” The XM6 is the pair you plug in more often because the ANC stack eats power. If your week is two flights and a noisy office, both last long enough. If your week is a cross-country drive and a dead wall wart, 57 hours is the feature.
The more interesting spec is the battery you can replace. Pop the left ear pad, undo four Phillips screws, lift the cover, unplug the pack. Haslam says it takes seconds. At publication time Sennheiser was not even selling the spare battery yet, which is a very 2026 version of “right to repair”: the chassis is ready, the SKU is not. Still, this is the first time WIRED’s reviewer has seen a headphone brand invite you to do it. Sony’s XM series still treats the battery as a sealed organ. When it dies in year four, you buy another pair or find a shop that will void whatever is left of the warranty.
Weight: 10.3 ounces on the Momentum 5, mostly plastic, denim strip on the headband, colors in blue denim, black, and white. Haslam’s ears are large and still fit. Glasses are never perfect on over-ears; he wore these for hours anyway. At 95°F the pads got sweaty, which is physics, not a defect. The XM6 is the lighter, more travel-folded object in most bags. The Momentum 5 is the one that looks a little more “hi-fi club” than “airplane uniform.”
Noise cancellation is not a tie
Haslam is blunt. Eight mics, good-to-great ANC, fine on trains, cafés, shared offices. If you have never owned Sony or Bose, you will be happy. If you are coming from the XM6 or the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2, you will notice the missing “sealed off” feeling. Small margins. Those margins are why people pay Sony money.
Mashable’s travel roundup still puts Bose Ultra 2nd Gen as best overall for flying and the XM6 as best sound, at $398. The Momentum 5 does not appear in that eight-pack. That is not a scientific ranking. It is a hint about which names cabin crews already know.
A plane is the honest test. Engine roar is low-frequency. Sony and Bose have spent a decade on that band. Haslam’s “good, verging on great” on public transport is the Sennheiser doing the job without matching the last 10 percent of hush. If you only fly twice a year, you will not miss it. If you fly twice a month, you will.
Call quality on the Sennheiser is “good,” with wind-reducing mics that keep a voice forward. Haslam would not buy them for calls. Sony has spent years tuning talk-through and voice pickup for open-plan offices. If your job is Zoom from a WeWork, that history shows up.
The Bose comparison is in flux on price. PC Guide noted QuietComfort ANC cans $180 off late last week, best since Cyber Week. Street prices in this category move weekly. The $399 sticker on the Momentum 5 is only a tie with Sony until Sony or Bose runs a sale, which they do constantly. Sennheiser’s newness may protect the tag for a month. After that, $400 vs $280 Bose is a different argument.
Transparency mode on the Momentum 5 is a double-tap on the right cup, same gesture that flips ANC. Touch controls: tap to pause, swipe for volume and skip. Haslam says they did not annoy him, which is the highest compliment touch earbuds usually get.
Sound: warm and agreeable vs the class default
Codecs on the Momentum 5: SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, plus multipoint. Wired listening is not a souvenir port. 3.5 mm analog or USB-C digital up to 24-bit/96 kHz. That is a real path if you still own a DAP or you plug into a laptop that does not do LDAC.
The Smart Control Plus app has ANC sliders, transparency, an eight-band EQ, Dolby Atmos, and location-based profiles (max ANC at the office). Use the EQ. Haslam’s stock tuning is bass-forward, relaxed, warm, and kind to bad Spotify streams. Acoustic and classical listeners will want to pull the low end down. Side by side with the B&W Px7 S3, he heard less punch. Side by side with AirPods Max 2, the Sennheiser midrange cut through with more authority. Versus the 2019 Momentum 3, he missed the old leather pads.
The XM6, as we wrote in the JBL comparison, defaults closer to neutral with a mild bass lift and a 10-band EQ that can reshape it. Mashable’s “best sound” label is about that balance plus Sony’s spatial tricks, not about winning a golden-ear shootout. If you want headphones that make Olivia Rodrigo and Wu-Tang both easy, Haslam says the Momentum 5 does that. If you want headphones that disappear as a tuning and leave the mix, Sony is still the safer default.
WIRED’s tired list is honest: ANC will not win awards, bass-forward tuning may not be yours, the plastic feels less premium than the price, and this is not a vast upgrade from Momentum 4. That last point matters if you already own the 4. 57 hours versus 60, a denim strip, a battery hatch. Haslam still scored them 8/10 because comfort, codecs, and repairability are the parts other $400 pairs keep skipping.
Features and daily friction
Multipoint is on both. Sony’s app ecosystem is deeper because the XM line has been a software project for a decade. Speak-to-chat, adaptive ANC that watches your location, wear detection that actually pauses: these are solved problems on the XM6. Sennheiser’s location profiles are a start. They are not the same pile of automation.
Folding: the XM6 is the pair that disappears into a slim case. The Momentum 5 sits in the middle of the “premium sculpted” and “lightweight Bose” camps, per WIRED. If your bag is already full, Sony’s case geometry wins.
Build: Haslam wanted more than plastic at $399. Sony’s XM6 is also plastic, just more practiced plastic. Neither is AirPods Max stainless. If metal matters, you are in a different price argument we already had with the Max 2.
Sonova still owns Sennheiser’s consumer division and has been shopping for a buyer. Haslam flags that and then says the Momentum 5 does not feel like a distressed asset. Fair. It is still a reason to value a battery you can swap if the brand’s consumer line gets flipped again in 2027.
Who should buy which
Buy the Sony WH-1000XM6 if you fly, commute on rails, or work in an open office and you want the quietest $400 can. That is most people, which is why it is the winner on this page. ANC is the feature you notice every day. Battery is the feature you notice twice a week.
Buy the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless if you already like Sennheiser’s warm tuning, you keep headphones for five years, or you are allergic to sealed batteries. The hatch is the product. 57 hours is the product. Wired USB-C hi-res is the product. ANC is “good enough” unless you have already lived with Sony or Bose, in which case you will miss the last 10 percent of hush.
If you own Momentum 4 and they still hold a charge, wait. WIRED does not think this is a vast upgrade. If the 4’s battery is the reason you are shopping, the 5 is the cleaner replacement than jumping to Sony and relearning the app. You keep the warm house sound, you gain the hatch, you lose three hours of paper spec and you do not have to decide whether Sony’s app is a gift or a second job.
If you want 70-hour bragging rights, the Marshall Monitor III and the JBL Tour One M3 still exist. They do not unscrew. The JBL comparison we already ran against the XM6 is the battery-max path. The Momentum 5 is the battery-replace path. Those are different buyers even when the hour count looks similar on a spec sheet.
The short version
| Momentum 5 | WH-1000XM6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Street price | $399 | ~$398 |
| ANC | Good, not class-leading | Class-leading |
| Battery (ANC on) | Up to 57 hours | Roughly half that |
| User-replaceable battery | Yes (spare not sold yet) | No |
| Wired | 3.5 mm + USB-C 24/96 | 3.5 mm |
| Weight | 10.3 oz | Lighter travel fold |
| Tuning | Warm, bass-forward | Near-neutral, EQ-friendly |
Sony wins the default recommendation. Sennheiser wins the long-haul object. Haslam’s 8/10 is for a pair that refused to fight Sony on silence and fought them on whether a $400 headphone should be landfill in 2029. That is a real difference. It is not enough to dethrone the XM6 for most ears on an airplane. It is enough to stop treating Sony as the only grown-up in the aisle.