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

Product Information

Conversation Clear Plus provide a respectable sound quality in everyday quiet or one-on-one situations. The audio feed is full, or broadband, and relatively true to how the surrounding world sounds in normal listening conditions without earbuds. There is also no perceptible delay, or latency, which aids the realism of their ambient awareness system. My experiences while streaming music were also similar.

In short, the headphones may be quite convincing in transparent mode, but they lag far behind when it comes to music. MICROPHONE The Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus does look like classic wireless headphones at first glance. They have short stems pointing towards the mouth, and you can clearly see the microphones’ locations. As the name suggests, the whole point of Conversation Clear Plus is to analyse ambient noise. So there’s no question of offering small, discreet microphones.The buds are tiny, covered with vents for various microphone types, and there's a single button on each one. They come fitted with a small removable ear hook and three sizes of tips. The significant upside here is that they are supremely light and comfortable; it's no mystery that the intent behind the design was to leave these in your ears for many hours at a time in social environments. It's often easy to forget you're wearing them. The battery lasts nine hours (give or take, depending on your settings), with another two total charges waiting for you in the case. Conversation Clear Plus were released January 20th, 2023. Like hearing aids, Conversation Clear Plus are designed to make it easier to understand speech in noisy environments. However, Conversation Clear Plus offer limited volume when compared to prescription or OTC hearing aids, and this means they won't be a suitable alternative to a hearing aid unless you're at the earliest stages of losing your hearing. Those interested in advanced wireless earbuds: Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus are true wireless stereo earbuds with advanced features for streaming, noise reduction, and improving speech clarity. Basically, the Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus can be said to do their job well and are able to both increase speech intelligibility in noisy environments and reduce the basic stress that comes from such a noisy setting. However, users have to get used to the change in hearing experience. 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.

Sennheiser already offers an application for its headphones and earphones, Sennheiser Smart Control. The Conversation Clear plus require, however, to go through another mobile application: Sennheiser Conversation Clear. This is listed on the Play Store and App Store as being developed by Sonova, a sign that it is indeed a product designed primarily to help people with hearing loss. On the inside, the Conversation Clear Plus feature 12mm full-range dynamic drivers with a stated frequency response of 20Hz–20kHz. Battery life is around nine hours in the earbuds themselves, with a further two full charges in the case; from flat to full takes around five hours using the case’s USB-C input. No wireless charging is available. Wireless connectivity is via Bluetooth 4.2, with SBC and AAC codec compatibility. True wireless earbuds that are primarily designed to help with hearing difficulties rather than to stream music are becoming more common, and the Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus come from one of the biggest, most credible brands around. They come at a price, though – and even before they’re set up and doing their thing, it’s hard to understand why they’re as expensive as they are. They’re perfectly adequately built and finished, but they look and feel a lot more ordinary than the asking price suggests they should. One of those brands is Sennheiser. It launched several products in recent years to enhance the clarity of the interactions you have every day with people and devices in the home. Nevertheless, there’s still an unnatural tone to some voices. Some people sounded fine and much like themselves, while others sounded sharper, treading on sibilance (particularly with a female voice) and making their voice sound strained.Just as I let my guard down, though, a new product appeared on my doorstep. Instead of being an audiophile-focused listening machine, this one promises to help you in your daily life by assisting in listening to conversations in loud environments. It's an understandable leap to make, considering the pass-through mode on Sennheiser products has lately been improving by leaps and bounds… The headphones will analyse the sounds around you to gauge your environment best and calibrate which sounds to reduce and which to keep. In practice, the effect will be relatively weak in a quiet room. In a noisy place, however, the filter will be more pronounced. On the other hand, the headphones will tend to emphasise only the mid-range frequencies and therefore offer a rather tiring sound to listen to, which will need more depth.

Those looking for an introduction to hearing enhancement: Conversation Clear Plus are not hearing aids. While they may offer some communication benefits to specific individuals, they work more like smart earbuds. They have some hearing features but sound customization is limited. There are a few areas in which the Conversation Clear Plus could be better – and they are fairly fundamental. I found the look of Conversation Clear Plus slightly unique due to an antenna-like finger protruding off the front of the devices. This houses one of the onboard microphones as well as the touch control button. While this adds slightly to the size, it may help improve the device's noise reduction capabilities due to the increased distance between the forward and rear microphones. The visual aesthetic of Conversation Clear Plus are otherwise consistent with the expectations for a smart earbud. Sennheiser has integrated large 12mm diameter transducers for the audio part of its headphones. According to the manufacturer, this allows for the reproduction of frequencies from 20 to 20,000 Hz. It should also be noted that the Conversation Clear Plus are only compatible with one Bluetooth audio codec: SBC.

The Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus has no pairing button on the housing. This allows you to connect to a smartphone or computer even if you don’t have the headset. To do this, press the buttons on both earphones for a few seconds until they flash blue. The headphones then appear in the Bluetooth settings of your phone or computer. THE SENNHEISER CONVERSATION CLEAR APPLICATION The Conversation Clear app is separate from Sennheiser’s Smart Control app for its headphones, and in use, each section is easy to understand, the interface sensibly laid out and the sliders to change noise-cancelling and ambient modes intuitive enough to easily manipulate. Recharging the headphones, in their case, on the other hand, is a different matter. Firstly, the earphones must be perfectly aligned with the connectors, which is not easy given the width of the slot. In addition, recharging is particularly time-consuming. Starting with completely empty earphones, it took me 2 hours and 27 minutes to go from 0 to 100% charge on the Sennheiser Conversation Plus. By comparison, most earphones on the market offer a full charge in 30 to 60 minutes. The app/earbuds can switch between modes on its own with its Automatic Scene Detection, but the execution is also a mixed bag. The feature constantly monitors noise level but that also means it’s constantly switching between various noise cancelling levels, those little chimes become more frequent if you’re in a busy setting, and after a while it distracts. Performance Conversation Clear Plus is also a larger earbud which plugs your ear entirely when worn properly. This means there is potential for the occlusion effect, which refers to the increased perception of your own voice when your ears are plugged. This is often undesirable and described as a “hollow” or “echo” sound quality. Fortunately, the “pass-through” ambient awareness system helps minimize this effect. Conversation Clear Plus also offers active occlusion cancellation (AOC) which further improves the naturalness of your own voice. This element of Conversation Clear Plus was impressive and improved general comfort during long-term wear.