The Sennheiser TV Clear are earphones that not only pair with mobile devices, but were specially developed for TV viewers. They are particularly comfortable, make dialogue easier to understand and their volume can be adjusted independently.
Sometimes it’s the speakers, sometimes the ears, sometimes the lousy sound of the show that makes it difficult to understand dialogue well when watching TV. Sennheiser has developed the TV Clear wireless earphones especially for such problems, which also ensure clear sound on smartphones and other mobile devices.
In principle, of course, you can pair any Bluetooth headphones with a television if it supports it. However, the TV Clear comes with an additional radio transmitter that is plugged into a jack or the optical input of a TV set. As a result, the earphones not only work with any TV, but also offer a much more stable connection, which also enables virtually zero-latency audio transmission.
The setup is uncomplicated. You install the associated app on your smartphone and pair the devices as usual. The transmitter and earphones can be found independently at the push of a button and you can actually get started. It is only important to ensure that PCM is set as the output format on the television, with other formats the TV Clear refuse to work. In the test, PCM was already set on a Samsung television, but playback only worked after confirmation again.
As promised by Sennheiser, the earphones, which weigh just under 7 grams, are very comfortable. Thanks to silicone attachments with wings, they sit so securely in the ear that you could also wear them for jogging if they were protected from sweat.
The charging box of the TV Clear is slightly larger than that of normal earphones, but this is irrelevant when used in the living room. More importantly, Sennheiser has thought of rubberizing its underside, which allows it to hold its place even on smooth coffee tables.
The sound of the TV Clear is basically characterized by great clarity. Very fine highs really deliver every detail and the mids are impressively well sorted. This opens up an unusually wide and airy stereo stage for earphones. However, the clarity comes at the expense of the bass, which is clearly perceptible but relatively reserved.
Despite the already very accentuated reproduction, this is sometimes not enough to be able to understand dialogues effortlessly. The TV Clear have a speech intelligibility program for this. Luckily, the function is less complicated than its name: the treble can be boosted by up to 20 decibels in five stages.
The effect is remarkable, often the first level is enough to understand mumbling actors or dialogues in front of a loud backdrop much better. This is also extremely helpful, for example, if you want to watch foreign-language original versions of series or films.
The function also has advantages if you use the earphones for calls with your smartphone and the caller is difficult to understand. The hands-free function conveys your own voice cleanly and clearly, but wind noise or road noise are not particularly filtered out.
The additional transmitter also has the advantage that you can adjust the volume of the earphones independently of that of the television. For example, other viewers can listen to programs quieter or through the bass-strong soundbar.
So that you are not excluded from a shared TV experience, you can let the outside noise through in seven different levels. There is a small minus for a somewhat low maximum volume.
Sennheiser is very successful in controlling the earphones. The outer surfaces are mechanical buttons, which can be used to control the volume or select the levels for speech intelligibility and ambient noise by pressing them briefly or long.
In addition, there are touch surfaces in the frame, which can be assigned any other functions that are activated by two taps. By default, this is pause/resume playback and allow outside noise through. Very good: If the touch surfaces get on your nerves when you touch them unintentionally, you can deactivate them.
If you take out both plugs, the playback pauses, if one stays in, it continues on it. Cool: Lost earphones can also be found buried deep under sofa cushions via a shrill tone.
A very long battery life completes the successful presentation of the TV Clear. If you want, you can watch TV with them for 15 hours at a time. The transport box offers reserves for another 22 hours. However, there is also a drop of bitterness: At around 400 euros, the Sennheiser TV Clear is quite expensive television fun.
