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

Product Information

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. 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. You'll also be able to use the Conversation Clear Plus to take and make phone calls, which is a pretty handy addition to the feature set because you won't need to rely on your smartphone's speaker system to hear the person on the other end. You'll get up to 9 hours of use from these at a time, and they come housed in a charging case which delivers up to 27 hours of battery to the buds in total before you'll need to plug it in using a USB-C cable.

Hearing loss is a silent issue, one affecting many adults – but as a topic, it hasn’t received the attention it merits. What's more, is the ease of use - setup seems to be incredibly simple and there's plenty of extra guidance to help you along, particularly within the adjoining smartphone app which has step-by-step directions and a useful FAQ link. There are a few areas in which the Conversation Clear Plus could be better – and they are fairly fundamental. In concrete terms, the Conversation Clear application is different from Smart Control. It doesn’t offer multiple noise reduction modes, touch controls, or the ability to change the equaliser on the headphones. After a few hearing tests to fine-tune the volume and clarity level, you will have access to three tabs: relax, communication and stream. I also found, as the earbuds are quite big, they were pretty conspicuous. This could put some people off wearing them in public. In the way that modern hearing aids are often so small you can’t tell people are wearing them, slimming down the Conversation Clear Plus would help – even offering them in a lighter colour as well. I also found the tight fit means they can be uncomfortable after wearing them for longer periods.

BATTERY LIFE

Conversation Clear Plus is advertised as a hearing solution even though it is not a traditional hearing aid or over-the-counter device. As such, the sound quality issues that occurred during our testing are surprising. I noticed the greatest artifacts in dynamic environments with multiple talkers—which is exactly where most people may desire speech enhancement. 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. This is all part of the buds’“advanced speech enhancement technology,” which uses the on-board mics and ANC to isolate particular voices based on who you’re looking at. The effect is weird at first, but once your ears get used to it, the impact is amazing. The communication mode, on the other hand, will allow you to hear the sounds around you and increase the clarity so that the Conversation Clear Plus can better capture voices.

For general music or podcast listening Conversation Clear Plus provided a broad and clear audio streaming quality. I was happy to find that the distortions mentioned above during general use were not present. The earbuds also provided considerable overall isolation which made for a more immersive listening experience. However, the ability to choose between isolation or ambient balance within the app was useful depending on the environment. 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.