Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus - True Wireless Bluetooth Hearing Solution for Speech Enhancement with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) - Black

Product Information

With step-by-step guidance in the companion app, getting started with Conversation Clear Plus is easy. In combination with the Conversation Clear Plus app, the earbuds deliver an intuitive, hassle-free user experience for tailoring listening preferences. Overall, even with external sounds at 0%, the Conversation Clear Plus don’t do as well as the best active noise-cancelling headphones, such as the Apple AirPods Pro 2 or the Bose QC Earbuds II. COMMUNICATION MODE Battery life is rated at nine hours and 27 in total with the charging case (two extra charges). Given the Conversation Clear Plus’ many use cases I don’t think it would be fair to judge its battery life on streaming audio alone but battery life, in general, was solid throughout testing. There’s no wireless charging as the case’s reserves are boosted by a USB-C connection.

Conversation Clear Plus – True Wireless Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus – True Wireless

There are a few areas in which the Conversation Clear Plus could be better – and they are fairly fundamental. On top of letting you communicate more effectively, these will work nicely for consuming media when you hook them up to your devices via Bluetooth connectivity. In the dedicated Streaming mode, these have the ability to double up as a pair of regular true wireless earbuds and will adjust the sound settings accordingly. You can use them to listen to music, radio, TV shows, movies and so on without having any issues with clarity. After that, there are ten stages of external sound reduction available in the Relax mode, as well as a slider to make external sounds “smoother” or “clearer” (Sennheiser’s descriptions, not mine). Communication has ten stages of speech volume enhancement, a “Clarity boost” control to basically turbo-charge that enhancement and, again, a slider to give an emphasis either to speech clarity or smoothness. Stream has a control option to balance the level of external sounds against the volume of the media you’re listening to, and the clear/smooth slider makes another appearance. The app has a degree of autonomy, too (as long as you allow it) – “Automatic Scene Detection” constantly monitors your environment, and will adjust noise and/or boost levels to suit.The Conversation Clear app provides sound customization and wireless control over the earbuds. The devices can be put in a pairing mode by pressing the touch control button located on the outer face for four seconds. The app will then establish a connection and prompt you through various screens familiarizing you with the devices and proper placement in your ears. The final step of onboarding guides you through two personalization listening tasks where you set your preferences for both volume and clarity. After onboarding is completed you gain full access to the app and the three user modes for relaxation, communication, and audio streaming. The first mode, Relax, is designed for comfort and provides user controls over external sounds from 0 (max reduction) to 100% (normal ambience). Conversation Clear Plus uses one of the two onboard microphones for ambient awareness which provides a more 360 degree picture of your surroundings. Communication is the second setting where you can experience the full benefits of Conversation Clear Plus’s multi-mic beamforming speech enhancement capabilities. The app defaults to a specific volume based on your initial onboarding preferences and the volume can be further customized from there. A Clarity Boost switch is also available when further speech enhancement is needed. The final Streaming mode provides a slider for you to control the balance between streamed and ambient signals. Various tabs for support and your personal settings are also available. In concrete terms, the relax mode is the one that will offer active noise reduction with a gauge allowing 0 to 100% of external sounds to pass through. Sennheiser? Ahh yes, they make the ceiling beam forming mic for our conference room audio system" - Hybrid corporate A/V-IT guy

Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus review: Chatting ain’t

The thinking behind how switching works is muddled. Switching between Relax and Communication is simple – a hold on the right or left bud depending on which mode you’re in swaps between them – but the Stream mode is an afterthought, accessible only through the Conversation Clear app. Hearing loss is inevitable as we get older, but finding you have an issue and doing something about it has, historically, taken longer than it needs to. Help is on the way though, with several headphone brands looking to take leadership in that area.That’s an impression that only gets stronger once you start using them. Yes, their control app is logical and useful, and yes, the earbuds’ ability to either negate external sounds or give them a welcome and quite accurately focused boost is unarguable. But the earbuds are tonally pretty hard and edgy, and when you do decide to listen to music, they sound diffuse and uncertain.