Among many new products Sennheiser showcased at CES 2023 was the Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus, true wireless earbuds that have an interesting secret: advanced speech enhancement technology that help those who are hard of hearing to hear better, particularly in loud environments.
Resembling traditional true wireless earbuds, they use a Sonova chip and Automatic Scene Detection that analyzes the noise level in the environment and matches the speech enhancement level to the surroundings. This helps enhance the sound of the speaker, whether they are in person or on the phone. This works alongside Active Noise Cancellation to block distracting noises as well, which further helps improve the clarity of conversations. You can also manually choose how much background noise you want to hear and can adjust the level of background noise you want to hear via Ambient Awareness mode.
Daniel Holenstein, Sennheiser Senior Product Manager, says the company conducted an independent study that showed 95% of users experienced significant speech enhancement in noisy situations when using the product. While I had a short demo at CES in a very noisy environment and could detect the speech enhancement capabilities, I expect them to be even better with the right sized fit for my ears and proper set-up.
Speaking of which set-up is easy thanks to the step-by-step guidance in the Conversation Clear Plus app. Choose among three different listening scenarios to personalize the audio experience. There’s Relax, for example, for customizing the amount of background noise to block while Communication and Streaming automatically adjust settings for the best performance and clarity.
Like any standard pair of true wireless earbuds, they pair with a Bluetooth-enabled device quickly and easy and offer an ergonomic design for a comfortable fit. They run for up to nine hours per charge and come with a charging case that affords another 27 hours.
The Sennheiser Conversation Clear Plus will be available for pre-order on January 5, 2023, and on sale on January 20 for an MSRP of 849 Euros, or about $1,224 in Canadian dollars. There’s no word on Canadian availability just yet.