The question is, are these headphones the best in the mid-range? At Rs 15990, the Sennheiser Accentum Plus make for a great case for themselves if you are looking for a pair of headphones that has a well-rounded feature set and sounds great, with a great, lightweight build and design. However, if you are someone looking for the purest sound out of a pair of headphones, then I would recommend the Sonic Lamb Headphones. They have a fairly flat sound signature. The bass might be something that you would need to look out for, because of the tech that they employ to reproduce it. You can read my full review of these headphones by clicking here. The Sonic Lamb headphones while putting up a strong competition against the Accentum Plus wireless, fall behind these headphones in terms of features. And, that is what might lead many to gravitate towards the Accentum Plus over the Sonic Lamb headphones.
Sennheiser is a brand that has been pivotal in the audio world for years now. The German audio juggernaut may have shifted its focus to primarily professional audio, but its presence and impact in the consumer audio industry stands strong. Having produced some of the most iconic pairs of headphones that we have come to know and love, they are still going strong, pushing out products that are class-leading. However, whenever a new product comes into the Digit Test Centre for a review, we don’t let the stories attached to it, cloud our judgement. So, when the Sennheiser Accentum Plus Wireless Headphones showed up, I set all the lore aside, and put it through our rigorous testing process.
The world of consumer electronics has gotten highly competitive over the years and Sennheiser is not left out of the race. Despite having products that sound great and are loved by many, every new entrant in this battlefield needs to prove its mettle. The same was the case with the Accentum Plus wireless. In the brand’s wireless line of headphones, they plug the gap between their budget HD series of headphones (which shares its name with the brand’s professional headphone lineup) and their flagship Momentum 4 headphones.
Now, without further ado, let’s hop into this review and see how the Sennheiser Accentum Plus Headphones fared in our tests –
The Sennheiser Accentum Plus headphones are a literal reflection of the philosophy – What ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And it reflects their approach towards the Accentum Wireless line of headphones. Sennheiser got the design of their Momentum 4 Wireless Headphones right, and they stuck by it when making these headphones. They look elegant and, thanks to their muted design, can be worn anywhere from a boardroom to a flight without any issues.
Now, before going any further, the usual PSA is mandatory. Everything that is related to audio is very subjective. So, please try them out before you buy them.
Coming back to the design, Sennheiser has maintained the design of the Momentum 4, but cut corners on the material choice. You have a full plastic build, which, feels sturdy. I did our regular stress tests on these headphones and they were completely unfazed. The padding on the headband and the earcups is also soft and makes them comfortable to wear for longer periods of time. There is minimal sound leakage and the pasisve isolation is great, which in turn helps the ANC. The headband is adjustable and has a smooth sliding mechanism to allow for adjustments. The single, multi-function control button as well, is sturdy and has a nice clicky feel to it. These headphones are well built overall, and the choice of materials ot cut down, does not affect their quality.
The Sennheiser Accentum Plus Headphones come with plenty of features. You have support for a variety of high-res CODECs including – SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX adaptive, mSBC, CVSD. You also get Adaptive Hybrid ANC, which we will talk about later, a feature-rich app, which makes customisation easy and simple. The app is called the Sennheiser Smart Control App and it allows for plenty of customisation options. The penta-band EQ allows you to tune the sound to your liking and has prests that will let you get a hold of different musical genres at the click of a button. You also have a bass boost mode. Bass-lovers take note.
The controls on these headphones are also easy to use. Both the touch-sensitive controls and the button are on the right ear cup, and are easy to get hold of and use in general. Sennheiser has done a great job here as well. However, I would have loved to have an additional button for ANC and transparent mode toggle. The reason is that integrating the ANC toggle in the power button makes it such that some of the beginner users of these headphones would often find themselves lost about how to work with that, for their ANC and power switching. There is also pause when removed feature on these headphones. However, the sensor is only on the right earcup, which means that you will need to consciously remove that side of the earcup if you want to quickly pause the music and listen to something around you.
You can find the full list of specifications for these headphones here.
With the Sennheiser Accentum Plus Headphones you get a fairly balanced sound signature, with subtle boost to the lows and the highs, giving a shallow U-shape. As you can see in the graph below, these headphones are fairly balanced sounding and with some tuning in the app, even the purists who prefer a flat-sounding pair of headphones, which are also our benchmark here at the Test Centre, would like this pair of headphones. That can be done using the customisable EQ that is baked into the app.
Out of the box, the sound might sound a bit bass-heavy to some people, with the lows rolling off into the mids. However, in my experience, these headphones sounded great with most genres of music. Even vocal heavy tracks like Rescue Me by OneRepublic, which tend to struggle because of the bass rollover, also sounded great. Be it the bassline on tracks like Uptown Funk or dense metal instruments in tracks like Selkies by BTBAM, everything you throw at these headphones, you can stay assured that they will handle it well.
Coming to the mic and ANC. Like some of the other headphones and TWS earbuds that I have tested so far, the Sennheiser Accentum Plus Wireless Headphones perform great in closed and controlled environments. However, when exposed to challenging conditions, they struggle a bit. The mic does seem to not take the sound of traffic well, however, the ANC holds its own for the most part. For the price, both work well.
Coming to the battery life of these headphones, Sennheiser claims that they can last up to 50 hours on a single charge. When I put this to test, with ANC on and volume set to 50 per cent, which is around 75 db SPL, these headphones lasted for 45 hours. Forty-five hours and 15 minutes to be precise. These numbers are insane considering offerings that are double its price come in with half the battery as we have on these headphones.
If you ever run out of battery, though, the brand has packed in fast charging into the Accentum Plus Wireless headphones. You can get upto three hours of playtime by charging these for 10 minutes using the USB cable that has been included in these headphones. You can also use them with your source by connecting them with the included 3.5 mm audio cable as well. However, the performance difference is very noticable and the drop in volume made me strictly steer away from it.
With all that said, the question is, are these headphones the best in the mid-range? At Rs 15990, the Sennheiser Accentum Plus make for a great case for themselves if you are looking for a pair of headphones that has a well-rounded feature set and sounds great, with a great, lightweight build and design. However, if you are someone looking for the purest sound out of a pair of headphones, then I would recommend the Sonic Lamb Headphones. They have a fairly flat sound signature. The bass might be something that you would need to look out for, because of the tech that they employ to reproduce it. You can read my full review of these headphones by clicking here. The Sonic Lamb headphones while putting up a strong competition against the Accentum Plus wireless, fall behind these headphones in terms of features. And, that is what might lead many to gravitate towards the Accentum Plus over the Sonic Lamb headphones.
