Skip to main content

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

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.

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.

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

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…
JBL updates its Tune, Vibe, and Endurance Peak earbuds at CES 2023
JBL Tune Flex.

As it has in the past, JBL has brought a huge number of personal audio products to CES 2023, including wireless earbuds and headphones for everything from casual to critical listening. Some of these products were previously announced for European countries, but now we have release dates and pricing for U.S. availability, too. Here's everything JBL announced.
JBL Endurance Peak

JBL has improved its sports-oriented wireless earbuds considerably from 2022, with:

Read more
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3 get Bluetooth multipoint and hi-res audio
Close up of Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3.

Sennheiser has just released a software update for its flagship wireless earbuds that enables Bluetooth multipoint, a feature that the Momentum True Wireless 3 were missing when they launched earlier in 2022. The update comes just days after Sony made a similar announcement regarding its LinkBuds Series and WF-1000XM4 earbuds.

Bluetooth multipoint is the ability to pair a set of headphones or earbuds to two devices simultaneously, such as a computer and a smartphone. When you're connected to two such devices, you can quickly and seamlessly switch between them, just by starting the playback of an audio source -- no need to drill back into your device settings. When a phone call is received, the connected earbuds will automatically switch to the phone, and ideally, switch back to the previous device after the call ends.

Read more
Audio-Technica’s $2,700 wooden wireless headphones do something no other headphones can do
Audio-Technica ATH-WB2022 wireless headphones.

Audio-Technica (A-T) has been doing some wild things in honor of its 60th anniversary, like creating a $9,000 phono cartridge, and bringing back its quirky Sound Burger portable record player from the 80s. But those are just fun frivolities. The really impressive birthday gift that this 60-year-old is sharing with the world is the ATH-WB2022, a set of wooden, wireless headphones that claim to be the very first to have built-in balanced stereo.

I know, you may be scratching your head, wondering how this feature can possibly justify an insane $2,700 price tag, but audiophiles are going to be salivating right about now.

Read more