Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Sennheiser’s latest earbuds do double duty as private TV headphones

By

Sennheiser has announced a new set of wireless earbuds known as the Sennheiser TV Clear. They’re designed for folks who want to listen to their TV using headphones, but don’t want to have to buy a separate set for when they’re listening to music or taking calls on their phone. The TV Clear can do both, jumping back-and-forth with relative ease. They’ll sell for $400 when they’re released later this summer.

There are plenty of times when you might want to listen to your TV’s audio privately, so that you don’t disturb others, or perhaps so you can finally hear dialogue clearly without ramping up the volume to movie theater-like levels. But, as Digital Trends’ own Andy Boxall recently discovered, there are not plenty of good options for doing so.

Man wearing Sennheiser TV Clear earbuds.
Sennheiser

The TV Clear attempt to solve this problem by shipping with their own dedicated wireless transmitter. You connect the transmitter to your TV’s audio output, and it creates a very low-latency wireless link with the earbuds. That solves a big problem that folks commonly run into when connecting regular Bluetooth headphones and their TVs: Lip-sync issues caused by wireless lag.

Recommended Videos

There are five speech clarity levels, providing up to 20 decisbels of high-frequency amplification, which should help with dialoueg. You can also set your own volume level on the earbuds independently from that of the television or other audio source when using them with the included transmitter. A companion app lets you adjust the touch controls and, if an earbud should become lost between the couch cushions, a Find My Earbuds feature should help you locate them.

Sennheiser TV Clear earbuds with charging case and TV transmitter.
Sennheiser

The TV Clear can also maintain a simultaneous Bluetooth connection to your phone, tablet, or PC, which means you won’t have to switch headphones just to take or place a call, or watch a quick YouTube video while in the kitchen. To help you stay connected to the outside world, you can activate a transparency mode to let sounds in.

Related

The TV Clear buds will last up to a claimed 15 hours of listening time on a single charge when used with the transmitter. The earbuds come with their own charging case, which Sennheiser says will add another 22 hours, for a total of 37 hours of TV listening. The company hasn’t said how long the buds will last when used with a phone.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
JLab steps closer to Sony and Bose with JBuds Lux ANC headphones
Woman wearing JLab JBuds Lux.

Only days ahead of the official start of CES 2024, JLab has given us a look at its continuing move into higher-performance audio with the $80 JBuds Lux ANC Wireless Headphones. They can be preordered starting January 3 in four different colors: white, graphite, sage, and mauve, with shipping expected to start as soon as late February.

JLab is also debuting its latest budget-priced noise-canceling wireless earbuds, the $60 JBuds ANC 3 True Wireless Earbuds, available in black, starting January 3.

Read more
The most innovative headphones and earbuds of 2023
The Hed Unity were the most innovative headphones of 2023.

In 2023, we saw plenty of great new wireless headphones and wireless earbuds emerge, like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC, Sony WF-1000XM5, and the new USB-C variant of the Apple AirPods Pro 2.

Each of these products delivers better performance than its predecessors in one or more categories like sound quality, active noise cancellation (ANC), battery life, or spatial audio. But for a product to be considered innovative, it can't just offer incremental improvements. It needs to break new ground by offering us something new or by getting us to think about an existing feature in an entirely new way.

Read more
What is ANC and how do noise-cancelling headphones work?
Close-up of earcup on Sony WH-1000XM5 wireless headphones.

Noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds are a godsend. If you've ever owned a pair, you'll know their ability to create a peaceful, noise-free listening experience that's excellent for listening to music, blocking out commute noise, and even working. And if you're thinking of investing in a set, you're in for a treat. Of course, not all noise-canceling products are created equal, but many of these devices are unified by some common audio tech. One feature that a number of these headphones and earbuds use is something called active noise-cancellation, or ANC.

When it comes to noise cancellation, you can think of ANC as the foundation. But how exactly does this impressive circuitry and sound processing work? What does the jargon mean? Who are the big players? We're here today to give you a crash course in ANC and its many audio offshoots.
What is active noise cancellation?

Read more