Topic: The thing about.... the Sennheiser Momentum OnEars

Hello folks, in my quest to find the "one fits all" audio solution to play games on my PS4 with, listen to music in top quality on my i-devices and even connect it to my Vita and 3DS I stumbled across one of my favorite audio brands, Sennheiser. They produce a retro-modern high quality headset called the Sennheiser Momentum. It's originally an over-ear solution but for testing purpose and (if I'd keep them) to easier carry them with me I opted to test the Sennheiser Momentum ON-EAR.

I'm posting this here because I think it might be interesting for some of you that are in a similar spot, having lots of devices, wanting good sound but not too much hassle with a trillion different headsets. I try to keep this posting as short and informative as possible.

First, let me start with my verdict, compared to the Bose AEW2 (bluetooth stereo headphones) I tested earlier, these headphones here, the Sennheiser Momentum ON-EAR, lose hard. I'm going to send them back to the kind folks of amazon and here is why:

They look stunning, they are really comfy to wear, they have an inline remote and mic, the cable can be replaced easily, they come in a nice carrying bag and pouch and the available colours/designs are just sweet. Thats, to me, where the good stuff about the Sennheisers end. Usually being a premium brand, arguably known for clear natural sound, Sennheiser took a different approach with the Momentom ON-EARs (note, the normal, OVER-EAR Momentum's are a completely different league and are subject to be tested next week). After reading several other reviews on the web to see if they correlate with my experience, it is clear. The Momentum ON-EARs are aimed at a bass-loving hipster demographic, customers that wear headphones for style primarily and bass secondarily. There is nothing wrong with that and I don'T want to step on anybodies toes, but to me the reference for BASS that sounds nice and is affordable in any kind of headset is still Bose.

A simple example, while all devices from Bose I've tested (pretty much all) all have the "get to love it" Bose-Bass, sounding like "ooomphhhh oooomphhhh ooomphhhhh" the Momentums go for a "oooompfffs ooooompffsss" - yeah I'm silly but I hope you get the idea. The Bose bass no matter how loudly played gets rather tuned back a bit to stay clear and you can still distinguish the instrument/sound causing the bass, whereas the Momentums bass is overly strong, so strong it goes into into over-pressure mode sounding noisy and dirty. Not nice, even though people might like over-emphasized bass, it still gotta sound good, and it doesn't here. I played Killzone Shadowfall with it and almost blew my eardrums...

Don't get me wrong, the Momentums are good headphones. Really good ones. But my AKG K619 sound better, clearer with better, harder sound and the Bose AEW2 and even IE2 (in ears) win across the band in clarity, dynamic and most of all: bass. Of course there is always better headphones, but I'm focusing here on the max 300,- euro range. At a price of around 189 euro the Momentums are not cheap for what you get.

Besides, the inline mic does not work with the Dualshock 4 Controller, normal sound runs just perfectly through your headphones though. On the AKG K619 (which you can use with your iphone, take calls, have a small inline remote and mic on them) DO work on the Dualshock 4, also the mic, and if you look in the right place you can pick them up for a steal of 78,- euro.

Anyways, the Momentums connect nicely to everything sporting a 3,5 mm jack only the inline mic does not work with all devices. It did work with Vita though. No 3DS, no PC, no PS4. So if I'd have to rate it, I'd give the Momentums a 5/10, which is really low considering how much I love the Sennheiser sound usually, I hope the bigger, OVER-ear Momentums that will arrive next monday blow my mind like I expect them to do. For 249,- they better do!

Hope this helped some of you.
I'd also love to hear about your suggestions, what headphones/mic/combo are you using on your dual shock 4 controller? Any recommendations?
So far I'm running a one-ear chat headset from sennheiser (also works wonderfully well just for chatting on your dual shock 4) and for in game sounds I use my Onkyo receiver with HECO speakers. Love HECO.