Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
Less exy than their siblings, the Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless ANC earphones are pocketable and priced better. Are they better in general?
It’s been an interesting year for earphones, and we’re barely halfway. Already, we’ve seen a flagship offering from Sennheiser — a sequel and follow-up of sorts — and now we’re being treated to something made to sit below that generation.
Compact and friendly, the Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless appears very different than the grandiose named Momentum True Wireless 4 siblings released by Sennheiser this year.
They’re smaller, simpler, and come with a more wallet-friendly price. They’re different in just about every way, and may even come with some design decisions that make them stand out more positively.
Are Sennheiser’s mid-range noise cancelling earphones the better bet, or is there something we’re missing on first glance? We’re diving deep as we jump into the Accentum True Wireless, finding out whether these earphones excel in ways their siblings can’t or won’t.
Design and features
Less earphones and more earbuds, the Accentum don’t look like the conventional tips we normally throw in our ears from Sennheiser. We’ve seen quite a few over the ears, both wired and wireless, and these are slightly different. Almost obviously so.
Sennheiser touts the look as an “ergonomic design”, and it’s not wrong: the shape is broad yet flat, and when armed with the right tip, they fit comfortably against the surface of the ear. They’re neither intrusive nor uncomfortable, with a lightweight 5 gram genuinely comfy design. It works well.
Inside, there’s a 7mm driver, two microphones on earpiece, support for aptX, Bluetooth 5.3 and Bluetooth LE, as well as a small case to hold the earphones in which can be charged using either a Type C cable or a Qi wireless charging pad.
In-use
The compact design is complemented by touch controls, but they’re less “touch” and more “tap”. As in you can tap or tap-and-hold to play, control whether transparency mode or noise cancellation is on, and even trigger the volume up or down.
Those controls are fairly customisable via the app — you can decide which action does what — but for the most part it’s tap to pause and play, double tap to go forward or backward, triple tap to trigger noise cancellation on and off, or hold down the touch sensitive buttons on either side to make the volume go up or down, all based on which ear you’re doing it from.
Interestingly, you’ll want to fiddle with that app to make sure the included transparency app plays music when you switch transparency’s hear-through feature on. By default, it isn’t switched on, and transparency just pauses the music and has you hear through the earbuds.
Overall, the app is handy, something we’ve seen from Sennheiser get used on soundbars and earphones alike, and there’s also the matter of comfort.
The design is such that you already won’t confuse the truly wireless Accentum for any other pair of earphones, and certainly not a pair of AirPods, as there’s no obvious stem. But the comfort is sound, too. In fact, they’re actually more comfortable than the more expensive Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4.
We’re told that might come from research via Sennheiser’s owner, the hearing aid maker Sonova, which has used some of its understanding of ears to make a better-fitting pair. They don’t hug tightly, but they fit nicely. The seal isn’t super tight, but the comfort is definitely there.
Performance
Thrust the Accentum True Wireless into your ears and you’re ready to get stuck in, which is what we’re doing, testing with the Pickr Sound Test (like we always do).
That starts with the electronic of Tycho and Daft Punk, where we hear a nice relatively balanced sound, but a restrained bass. It’s definitely comfortable, but could be better, and it’s the same feeling listening to the pop of Carly Rae Jepsen. It should be punchier, but it doesn’t quite get there.
Older music delivers better, though. Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” shines with strong balance, as does David Bowie’s “Starman”, and the same is true for most classic tracks, as well as with jazz and classical. These genres appear better overall.
Rock, however, can be hit and miss, as can modern soul. The guttural bass in FKA Twigs’ “Two Weeks” was flat and lacked the earth shaking sound this track attempts to give off, while neither Rage Against the Machine or Muse rumbled the low end in the way we expect. Charlie Puth’s “Done For Me” normally delivers a solid punch, but by comparison it felt flat.
That’s not to say the bass is bad, but just a touch shallow. The balance is there, and it’ll be fine for most. In short, the Accentum True Wireless are balanced enough, but they could be better.
Noise cancellation
One thing that didn’t grab us too much was the active noise cancellation, which didn’t feel as effective as with other pairs we’ve checked out.
Like the Momentum 4 True Wireless, you don’t get a lot of control for how the ANC works, with just on, off, and anti-wind. On the Accentum, that lack of control makes some sense; these are less expensive than their big brothers, which seems confusing there.
Unfortunately, they don’t deal with noise cancellation any better, and may actually fare a little worse. Walking by traffic and sitting on trains, we found noise crept in, forcing us to turn the sound up a little more to compensate. Wind isolation is fine when switched to it, but noise cancellation could be better.
There’s little doubting that the Accentum blocks some of what you’ll isolate against, but it’s not the total isolation you can find on the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds, and doesn’t feel quite on the same level as the Apple AirPods Pro, the latter of which runs for $50 more.
Your transparency mode is a little better, allowing you to hear through the earphones, though it will automatically keep music switched off. Switch it on, and the transparency mode isn’t quite as effective, though it still works.
Battery
At least the battery has something going for it, with up to six hours of battery life when ANC is switched on and two more for eight total when ANC is off. Why you’d run noise canceling earphones without ANC switched on is beyond us — we’re spoiled by it! — but you will get an extra two hours.
With noise cancellation on, however, battery life is around 4 to 5 hours, which is fine but not spectacular. Due to the compact size of the charging case, you can expect around three charges out of it, achieving as much as 24 hours with ANC, but probably netting you closer to 20 all up.
That’s a fine amount, but not necessarily spectacular, and likely due to the diminutive size of the earphone case, which is very small, especially when compared with its Momentum 4 sibling.
Value
The price could well be one of the main drawcard, because at roughly $350 in Australia, the Accentum True Wireless earphones are one of Sennheiser’s least expensive pairs of ANC earbuds yet.
A hundred and fifty bucks less than the Momentum 4 TWS and $50 less than the AirPods Pro 2nd-gen gives Sennheiser some footing to work with, but it still feels as if they’re a little more than where they ideally should be.
The hundred and fifty buck premium the Momentum 4 appears to have on this model gets you a firmer sound with tighter bass, something the Accentum doesn’t always feel matched in. You also get one more microphone on each ear, with two on each ear with Accentum and three on the Momentum.
Technically, there’s good value here, but given there are also great competitors at the $350 mark already — including Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM5, which can be found at $350 these days — we’re not sure the Accentum necessarily has the edge Sennheiser thinks it does. At $299, it would be just that little bit more compelling.
What needs work?
The price being better isn’t the only thing we take issue with, however.
The ANC could be slightly better and the sound could be more punchy, with neither really delivering in every environment or every song.
In the former, we found it handled your regular repeatable sounds fine, but noise did leak in. The full bubble of isolation wasn’t quite where other earphones were, giving you some of it, but not all. Similarly, our sound tests showed that while rock, jazz, and classical excelled on the Accentum TWS, modern pop, R&B, electronic, and the like just didn’t have the punch we were hoping for.
In short, the Accentum True Wireless are good, but they could easily be better.
Final thoughts (TLDR)
The vibe of “they could be better” is largely where the Accentum True Wireless earbuds they sit. Sennheiser has nailed aspects — the feel and the size, primarily — but needs more work on the sound, the active noise cancellation, and the price.
If they were a little less, we’d be more forgiving. They read like they should be. However prices change, and give it a few months for the tag to drop on these earphones. When that happens, they’ll be even better overall.
At release, there’s still a reasonable amount going for the Accentum True Wireless earphones. These are comfy and compact, something you can’t say about every pair out there. In a few months, the value could be even better overall. And with a tweak or two in sound, they could just about nail it.
