 So my review of the Sennheiser Momentum in-ear started on what was either a very promising or very ominous note. You see, when manufacturers with whom I have a long-standing relationship simply drop something in the mail to me, rather than asking if I want to review it first, it either indicates that it's junk that they know no one will want, but they have to send out a certain number of review units, and they figure once it's in my hands I kind of have to review it, or it indicates that they're certain it's gonna blow my socks off so they want to get it in the mail, rather than wait for me to confirm that my socks are on and ready to be blown off. But which one is this? If you're into earphones, I guess watch on to find out. And if you're into gaming PCs, make sure you're subscribed, because this video isn't about that, but our 2014 holiday PC Buyer's Guide is coming next week. Corsair Gaming RGB keyboards feature precision Cherry MX RGB keyswitches for 16.8 million color per key backlighting for virtually unlimited customization. Click now to learn more. It starts with the package. It always does, doesn't it? The Momentum in-ears come with four sizes of ear tips. I used the extra small ones, because the size of your ear canals obviously has nothing to do with other things. My wife can back me up on this. And this super amazing carrying case that I immediately discarded, because any IEM not rugged enough to be coiled up and thrown in my pocket is not worth buying to me. I mean, the thing is called Momentum. So if I can't keep it in my pants, then I guess that's just nature for you, right? My wife can back me up on this too. Sorry, what was I talking about? Right, earphones. So let's do the whole physical overview thing, shall we? We'll start with the bottom, I guess, where we find a four-pole, 3.5 millimeter right angle jack attached to a one and a half meter long oval elliptical cable thing that manages to not be bulky, but also be surprisingly tangle resistant for how light and thin it is. Moving up, we've got a tasteful plastic accent where the black cable splits into a striking black and red color scheme that I think works really well. A strong wire management slider, and then the inline microphone and remote. One of the biggest points of differentiation for this headset. You see, most manufacturers sit on either the Android or Apple side of the fence. So while the mic will work and volume control should work, single pressing the middle button to play and pause audio might work, and double or triple pressing for additional functionality probably won't. If you don't have a compatible device, because everyone handles the signaling on the phone end a little bit differently. Sennheiser is partially getting around this by maintaining two completely separate models of this in-ear. One for Apple users, and one for Samsung Galaxy or Android users. Now, this solution isn't perfect, and many Android phones, including Edge Z2 and Luxe Moto X, still won't work with the Galaxy version. But my HTC One M8 worked, and Brandon's Nexus 5 worked just fine. They have a compatibility list on their site, so while it's not perfect, at least it's a step in the right direction, and kudos to Sennheiser for this. Now let's have a look at the in-ears themselves. While I don't consider if one earbud is slightly more fashionable than the next one as a top priority when shopping, for something you're planning to wear outside of the house, it can't be completely ignored either, and I think Sennheiser's done a good job here. Their logo is engraved in a shiny, multicolored plastic end cap that's set into a black, strain-relieving, wire loop thing, and the rest of the housing is this shiny red plastic that might not go perfectly with my eye color, but is certainly eye-catching. The ear tips are installed on a metal nozzle that Sennheiser, and I'm not sure if they're joking here, calls a SOUND TUNNEL, that sits at a 15 degree angle to the rest of the housing for theoretically improved comfort, and they are your run-of-the-mill silicone type with unfortunately no included memory foam tips, although comply lovers need not despair as they should be compatible with aftermarket tips that work with the Sennheiser IE8s. Now moving into the actual use of the Momentum in-ears, I think I should start with my biggest gripe about these in-ears. They stay in my ears fine, but I just didn't find them that comfortable. Your mileage may vary, but having used IE8s for so long, I've gotten very accustomed to using my ears as cable strain relief, and I found that in spite of the lightweight cable, having their anchor point sticking so far out of my ears caused more pull than I'd like while I was wearing them. User reports on comfort seem to fly directly in the face of my experience, though, so it's possible that my ear shape simply doesn't work that well with them when it comes to comfort. But the sound quality is a different story. I did my listening with my usual mix of Top 40 garbage music on an iPhone 6 and an Xperia Z2, and initially, I have to say I wasn't that impressed, because I was comparing against my daily drivers the IE8s, and next to those with the bass ports dialed to 4 like I've been doing lately, the bass is unexceptional and the mids lack strength. But I realized, after having already started writing my notes for this review, what a stupid comparison that was, because they cost a third as much as the IE8s. So I picked up the similarly affordable and very, very well regarded Shure SE-215s, specifically to have a reasonable head-to-head, get it, contender for the momentum in ears. And listening to lows side-by-side gave me a completely new appreciation for the sound of these earphones. They do have a V-shaped sound signature with more emphasis on the lows and highs, but bass is well controlled and doesn't overpower the slightly recessed mids, meaning that vocalists won't have that far away or tinny sound that you get with many Beats Generation tuned audio products. Highs are clear and detailed without any of the fatiguing harshness that I find so unappealing with headphones that have a lot of sparkle in the highs, and overall, I guess I would just say compared to the Shure's, they sound richer, warmer, and much more fun. The sub-bass rumble that you get from a really nice bass guitar in the background is powerful enough to make you really pay attention to it. You can actually hear it, but it doesn't muddy up the rest of the track. They are a pleasure to listen to. But, like any hundred dollar product, there are trade-offs, and where the Shure's come away as clear winners is in noise isolation and comfort for me. The first one, I guess, is justifiable if the idea is to wear them while walking around on train tracks and not get hit by a train that you don't hear coming. But while the Shure flexible wire-over-the-ear system might be a little bit cumbersome to put on, and might look a little bit doofy as someone who doesn't need in-line controls, and likes his IEM so comfortable he can sleep in them without a special pillow, the SE-215s hold a lot of appeal. But the missing piece of the puzzle here is long-term durability, and one of our moderators on the forum has shared a horror story with me about the not very robust-looking earphone connector failing multiple times within a few months until his warranty expired, and with my experience with removable IEM cables, I don't find it terribly hard to believe. So the conclusion is this. Solid product, worthy of the momentum name, comfort was a weak point for me, but I seem to be in the minority here, and gosh, are they ever fun to listen to for a hundred bucks. Speaking of fun, Yahoo's Aviate launcher is launching in Canada, and as someone who's never used a third-party launcher, using it was a pretty different experience for me. Some stuff, like the way it automatically categorizes your apps, I was already able to do, albeit manually, with folders, but the swipe-up quick-dialer is fast and intuitive, the replacement app tray is much better to navigate than the ones in many Android skins, the way it prompts you when relevant events occur, like asking if you want to launch a music player when you plug in your headphones, and app suggestions on the different spaces make the Android experience easier more than anything else, especially for new users. I mean, I was expecting it to just kind of be full of Yahoo apps to install, but while some stuff, like the news widget that sends you stories in the morning and after work, can be powered by Yahoo, a lot of the rest of it was just useful stuff that I hadn't thought of putting on my phone before. So guys, if any of that looked interesting to you, check out Yahoo Aviate on the Google Play Store. There's a link in the video description, and a big thanks to Yahoo for sponsoring today's episode, or Aviate as it were. Guys, like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment if you're feeling some more complicated than this. As always, check the other link in the video description if you want to support us, you can give us monthly contribution, buy a cool t-shirt like this one, or change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code, so whenever you're buying new earphones, then we get a small kickback, that kind of stuff helps us out a lot. Thanks again for watching, and as always, don't forget to subscribe. Okay, that voice clip's on there, I'm out of here, bye.