Sennheiser’s flagship wireless earbuds are now better and cost less

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The company's latest flagship earbuds are the Momentum True Wireless 3s. With a more refined style, improved active noise cancellation, new features, and top-notch sound quality, Sennheiser has delivered a worthy competitor to the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds.

The new buds are less expensive than the previous model, but the company is still releasing them for less than the $299 launch price of the previous model. That is still premium pricing, but it is now on par with Apple's Air Pod Pros and comes in cheaper than both Sony and Bose's flagships. It's nice to see tech products go in the opposite direction for a change, and add new features, because they're getting more expensive every year.

The most significant upgrade is wireless charging. The lack of this feature was hard to accept. Table stakes should be used for wireless charging. I'm not sure how it took three tries to realize that.

There are four different sizes of ear tips in the box, but with the new model, the company also includes three optional wing fins that wrap around each earbud and tuck into your ears. If you need to keep the earbuds steady and secure in place during a workout or run, it's easy to replace the medium size earbuds with a smaller or larger wing. Without the stabilizer fins, the MTW3s took to my ears and didn't come loose.

The earbuds come in black, grey, or white and are smaller than their predecessors. The black review unit looks more subtle in the ear than the silver one. These aren't the most discreet buds around because they protrude further. The charging case has been shrunk due to the use of space, and the charging port has been relocated to the front. This can seem odd at first, but it is something other companies have started doing as well, and you might find it more convenient if you are charging the MTW3s in a store.

You don't have a direct control over how much ANC is applied with the MTW3s, but the strength of its noise cancellation has improved. An adaptive ANC is used by the company to increase and decrease noise cancellation. The adaptive approach has been tried by other earbud makers. I didn't find myself missing manual adjustment while testing these earbuds, but you might prefer more control. The ANC is not the same as Bose or Sony, but it does help keep the attention on the task at hand. The same natural sound that Sony, Bose, and Apple have all achieved can be heard with a tap of the left earbud.

When it announced its latest earbuds, Sennheiser didn't mention any changes to their sound. They still use 7-millimeter drivers that are similar to what was inside the MTW2s, and I would put the overall audio quality in the same ballpark as those, though these are slightly better and can crank. That is a good place to be, as these still sound wonderful. When watching videos or playing mobile games on the phone, the audio delay can be eliminated with the help of the AptX adaptive Bluetooth codecs. It would have been nice to see Sony's LDAC added to the equation, but that's the kind of omission I can live with, considering the lower price. Higher-res audio can be supported by AptX adaptive.

The Sennheisers deliver a very spacious, clean, and detailed sound, with the piano, classical guitars, and vocals all nicely layers without a hint of muddiness. When I switched between The National, Molly Tuttle, or Bon Iver, the same held true. The small touches of a song are brought out by these earbuds. You can adjust the bass, mid, and treble in the Smart Control app for both phones and tablets. The option enhances speech clarity. The tuning curve is consumer friendly, but I think the Sennheisers are more balanced. I ended up enabling bass boost more often than not, because the Sonys deliver powerful, energetic sound out of the box.

The option to set up sound zones and change the level of noise cancellation is now available in the mobile app. In my tests, this worked as expected, but it requires you to grant the Sennheiser app location tracking privileges on your phone. You have to set up a Sennheiser account to use Sound Zones or the Sound Check feature. I don't like making people sign up for an account just to use ear bud features.

Some owners of the previous Momentum True Wireless models reported a white noise effect while listening to the buds. In a completely silent room, I have not noticed any annoyance with the third- generation pair. The earbuds are IPX4 water-resistant, which makes them suitable for routine exercise, and the battery life remains unchanged at seven hours of continuous listening.

Voice call performance seems to have a leg up over the MTW2s, and I didn't get any major complaints about call quality or being hard to understand. These still come up short against the likes of LinkBuds. When you remove one or both buds, the ear buds have an auto-pause, and can be used by themselves.

I noticed the occasional signal dropout, and the status / prompt voice sometimes said "disconnected", as well as the occasional bug in the MTW3s. The new Sennheiser flagship earbuds don't support multipoint Bluetooth, so you're only able to connect to one device at a time. The company has claimed that it is planning to add multipoint in a future update, but as the old adage goes, you should only buy a product based on what it can do right now.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it. It is impossible for us to read and analyze all of these agreements. We started counting how many times you have to agree to use devices when we review them.

You can use the earbuds without having to agree to anything. If you want to install the companion Smart Control app, you will need to agree to this.

You can share your usage data, but it is optional. If you want to use features like Smart Zones, you need to register for a Sennheiser account.

There are two mandatory agreements to use the app.

I would recommend an upgrade for fans of the company's past buds if the Momentum True Wireless 3s had multipoint. Even as they are, they have done a good job of raising their value and lowering their sticker price. The noise cancellation is better now that you have wireless charging. The overall package is more compelling than the past premium efforts of Sennheiser. They don't replace the Sony 1000XM4s as my favorite earbuds, but they do have better noise cancellation, foam ear tips, and a warmer sound profile. Maybe that's what I'm used to now. It's right up there with the very best in audio quality, and for less than last time.

Chris Welch is a photographer.