Sennheiser Headphones Cut the Cord

The just-announced updated Momentum and Urbanite headphones from Sennheiser should be on your must-buy list in 2015.

Sennheiser makes some of the best headphones around these days: slick, smartly-designed sets with serious attention to detail. Our favorites include their sheep-leather-swathed Momentum Over-Ear headphones, which fuse glistening, studio-quality sound with pair-with-your-suit style, and the more casual Urbanites, whose better-than-Beats throb earned them a 2014 Maxim Best Stuff of the Year Award. So we were stoked to see the German company announce wireless versions of both sets at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show. The new Momentum 2.0 series, which sit on the higher-end of Sennheiser’s line, have been beefed up with not only Bluetooth and NFC pairing, but also active noise cancellation. As for the new Urbanite XL, the company’s lighter, more casual, commuter-friendly models, they are bolstered with Bluetooth, NFC, and such design niceties as an on-ear, tap-to-control touchpad for fine-tuning sound and skipping tracks without having to swipe your smartphone. They don’t, however, have any noise cancellation. Still, at first glance, both seem like standout models we can’t wait to wear in 2015. [TBA; sennheiser.com]