Sennheiser has spent the last 18 months basically building up a new dual-identity look and feel for its personal audio products, built around the established Momentum brand name and a new entrant, Accentum, for targeting the lower price spectrum.
With the Accentum and Accentum Plus offering excellent over-ear options, now we have these: the Accentum True Wireless earbuds. A few weeks of using them in-ear has given us plenty of thoughts about whether they're commendable among the best earbuds of today...
Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless: Price & Availability
The Accentum True Wireless are now available to buy for £169.99 in the UK, $199.95 in the US, and AU$299 in Australia, from a wide variety of retailers.
That makes them an interesting option in an earbud market dominated by models that come in either quite a lot more expensive than this, or a good chunk cheaper – they're truly mid-range, where that category has become squeezed to become more and more affordable over time.
Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless review: Design
You might expect Sennheiser to follow in the footsteps of its Momentum line, and offer a significantly more affordable but recognisable version of the Momentum True Wireless 4's design for the Accentum True Wireless, but you'd be wrong.
Sennheiser has instead come with a completely fresh design, one that doesn't really resemble anything else it sells right now, and it's really quite a nice one.
The earbuds have an oval shape, one that reminds us a tiny bit of Samsung's Galaxy Buds, with few hard edges and a curved aesthetic.
They're available in white or black, but whichever you pick there's a subtle Sennheiser logo that catches the light, along with perforations that house microphones for the earbuds' active noise-cancelling (ANC).
Of course, they're housed in a small case when not in use, and while it might seem minor, we're pleased with how diminutive it is. We really like the Momentum True Wireless 4's case, with its classy fabric coating, but it's chunkier than this, which makes the Accentum True Wireless easier to pocket.
That curved design thankfully means the earbuds are also comfortable to wear – we wore them on a couple of flights and a few train journeys for hours at a time without any discomfort. As you'd expect, you get a few silicone ear tips to choose from to get the right seal for you.
Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless review: Features
These are Bluetooth earbuds, plain and simple, although the Accentum True Wireless do have Bluetooth version 5.3 to unlock Auracast capabilities (if and when that passthrough system becomes more widely used).
They also have both Qualcomm aptX and AAC codec support, making audio quality very solid (from compatible devices), and we found our connection was rock-solid in testing using a trusty iPhone 15 Pro.
There's wireless charging as well as a USB-C port on the case, and you can expect around eight hours of use from the earbuds before you need to slip them back in the case, which can store another 20 hours of charge.
The big draw here, though, is that Sennheiser has included ANC in a form it likes to call "Hybrid ANC". This means that, in theory, you can have ANC active to whatever degree you choose (controlled by Sennheiser's app on your phone) while also having transparency dialled up or down to your desired level.
If that sounds fiddly, it isn't particularly, and you're on safe ground if you just categorise it as normal ANC in your head – it really isn't substantially different when you're using it.
Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless review: Performance
Assessing the Accentum True Wireless, like with so many earbuds now, comes down to two very different criteria: sound and noise-cancelling – each of which feels distinct from the other.
On the sound front, we found the Accentum True Wireless landed almost exactly where we expected based on Sennheiser's billing – they're at the upper end of the midrange 'buds we've tried.
That means you can expect a balanced sound that can be really great in quieter conditions and doesn't overly dedicate its attention to any one part of the frequency spectrum – and in particular it doesn't drown you in bass.
It's a great pair with Ezra Furman's crashing cacophonous sound, and the jazzy euphoria of Jungle, but we also listened to a bunch of audiobook chapters to check if things stayed crisp with the spoken word – and it was all good.
Do the Accentum True Wireless sound substantially better than lower-priced options like the Nothing Ear (2), though (our pick for the best budget noise-cancelling earbuds)? Well, we think there's a small margin there, but it might not be enough to convince you to fork out the extra cash.
Noise-cancelling, meanwhile, is another very solid outing – we made sure to use these earbuds on public transit a whole bunch, and they did indeed give us that gentle cocooning factor that is so sought-after, especially when on the go.
Sennheiser's hybrid system means cancelling is always on, but can vary its degree of output depending on the noise around you – which is handy in theory. In practice, we always prefer to just whack it up to the maximum and leave it there, which you can do in the app.
The transparency mode is solid enough, although, in a similar vein, we're fans of just taking out an earbud to hear something, and didn't find that the mode changed our position this time around.
Comparing these earbuds to Apple's AirPods Pro we had in our other pocket, the degree of cancellation was indeed not as impressive, and the same went for comparisons to the more expensive Momentum True Wireless 4.
That's no surprise, given the respective price tags, so it's probably more apt to say that, once again, we found the ANC only marginally better than the likes of Nothing's cheaper earbuds.
Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless review: Verdict
Sennheiser is one of the most reliable names in the personal audio game for a reason – its headphones and earbuds reliably serve up high-quality, balanced sound for a fair price.
And that's exactly the case with the Accentum True Wireless earbuds – which are comfortable, well-made, deliver great sound, and solid enough active noise-cancelling too. A great option if you want some earbuds that won't break the bank.
Also consider
The Nothing Ear (2) earbuds loom large over the Accentum True Wireless while testing – they're cheaper but still offer ANC, and some people will prefer their fun and funky looks.
Equally, if you want just a little more precision and better ANC, and if you decide that your budget is more flexible after all, Sennheiser's own Momentum True Wireless 4 make for a superb choice.
