German audio company Sennheiser might already have an impressive selection of headphones available, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping them anytime soon.
With their latest iteration of in-ear headphones, the SPORT True Wireless, you get exactly what you expect - a true wireless set of earbuds designed with athletes and fitness enthusiasts in mind, with the unique look, feel, and sound that Sennheiser delivers so consistently.
While they’re marketed as “sport” earbuds, the SPORT True Wireless are a great purchase for anyone in the market for wireless earbuds, regardless of whether or not you intend to do any real exercise.
Boasting “Adaptable Acoustics”, the SPORT True Wireless are IP54 rated, making them dust, sweat, and splash resistant. The build quality is good, and the headphones and case are lightweight, with each earbud weighing in at a measly 9 grams.
Visually, the matte black plastic headphones stand out. The Sennheiser logo is present in gold on the top of the case and each headphone, they’re light but bulky and are built into a distinctive cube shape.
Not only does this look striking and unique, but it serves a practical purpose - they nestle nicely into your ears and take up a good amount of space, preventing them from rattling around too much as your head moves.
It also makes the “intuitive touch controls” easier to use since you’re given a much bigger target to aim for, although admittedly this comes as a bit of a hindrance sometimes given how sensitive the panel is to accidental touches.
They come with a charging case and a small lanyard, which seems like a strange addition until you realise just how bulky the rectangular case is. Although it will fit into your pocket it’s not something that’s comfortable, and when I wore trousers with pockets that were baggy enough I was afraid that they would fall out.
The headphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.2 meaning you can connect them to a range of devices, not just your phone, with Sennheiser themselves suggesting you connect “to TV and Sports equipment, so you can stream your workout at home or stay connected in the gym.”
Truthfully I found them a little awkward to connect to my phone the first time - you have to connect them to your device using Bluetooth and then again using the Sennheiser Smart Control App.
I had an issue initially with one of the headphones not connecting, however after the initial setup they’ve run flawlessly, connecting immediately the moment you take them out of the case. It’s also possible to use just one earbud and leave the other in the case, which is something a lot of other wireless earbuds aren’t capable of.
The headphones promise a total of 27 hours of battery life, with 9 hours in the buds and 18 hours in the case. In reality, I’ve actually managed to get a little more than that with pretty heavy use (I listen to everything at full volume most of the time) so there’s definitely a lot for them to boast about in that area.
They also charge quickly, going from 0% to 100% in around 90 minutes using the included USB-C cable plugged into a mains powered laptop.
The features are where these headphones really shine. They come with six sets of ear adapters, that’s three sets of blue-rimmed “open” (small, medium, and large), and three sets of “closed”, sporting a black cross in the silicone. In addition, you get 4 different sets of “ear fins”, the little black tip that rests against the upper part of your ear for added stability.
In conjunction with the shape of the earbuds, these fins really work to prevent any kind of unwanted slipping, although the fins are quite a hard rubber and so can get uncomfortable after an hour or so.
Taking the fins out of the equation however the earbuds are quite comfortable, and Sennheiser have shipped them with a “no fin” option that you can use if you want to trade off the stability the fin offers with the long term comfort of taking it away.
The “open” and “closed” ear adapters work together with the Smart Control App, which has a “focus” mode and an “aware” mode. If you’re outdoors, Sennheiser suggests using the open ear adapters with the app set to aware mode.
This simulates the more classical open-backed headphones, ensuring you can “stay aware of your surroundings”.
If you’re at home or in the gym, then you need the closed-ear adapters and focus mode. This “eliminates distractions” using passive noise-cancelling - the earbud works with the app to drown out or muffle external sounds.
In reality, I found little difference between the open and closed adapters - the real magic seems to be happening with the way the app equalises the music across both modes. In focus mode, the sound carries a lot more bass, whereas in aware mode the sound is brighter with more high end.
This essentially means that while in focus mode, the bass helps to block out incoming sounds, even at relatively low volumes. In aware mode, the lack of bass means the sounds filter through much easier.
In addition to the above, the app comes with an equalizer that lets you control the bass, mid, and treble with sliders, and although it doesn’t get much more in depth than that, it does come with 6 presets, plus the ability to save your own.
It also offers a “soundcheck”, where you can let the music play and have it choose a preset for you. I actually found that most of the time messing around with the equalizer made the sound worse, and this was confirmed by the “soundcheck” tending to stick with the default preset for most music I tried it with.
You get a good amount of control over your device using the headphones “touch controls”, which by default allow you to play/pause, skip a track or go back to the previous one, adjust the volume, or activate your mobile’s voice assistant.
The defaults are intuitive but can be customised, although I was disappointed to find you can’t map the ability to switch between aware and focus mode to the touch controls.
As it stands you have to pull your device out of your pocket to do this, and honestly adding this to the touch controls of the earbuds would be a huge quality of life improvement.
The headphones are equipped with Sennheiser’s “TrueResponse Transducer”, a 7mm dynamic driver capable of delivering “superior clarity without distortion - even at high volume”.
The sound quality is nothing short of incredible, surpassing the quality of even more costly earbuds. This is something that won’t come as a surprise to Sennheiser veterans, given how impressive the sound quality of their products generally is.
My only grievance when it comes to the sound quality was the forced choice between “focus” and “aware” modes. Both affect the music in some way, and neither is a true representation of the music in its intended form. For musical purists, this might be something of a drawback.
In addition, the headphones come with an adjustable sidetone, making phone calls “more comfortable by letting you hear your own voice during calls”. That being said, the built-in microphone is functional but isn’t the best.
Verdict: 4/5
The SPORT True Wireless are available for pre-order at around the £120 price mark, a competitive cost compared to other earbuds on the market.
In particular, the sound quality is leaps and bounds above this price range, and the selection of earbuds and fins that come at no extra cost is something that far exceeds expectations.
They are easy to use, doing their job when it comes to passive noise cancellation or keeping you aware of your surroundings.
Sadly carrying spare ear adapters is impractical unless you have somewhere of your own to put them, and this feels like something of an oversight for a product that alleges to rely so heavily on the interchangeability of the ear adapters.
In addition, some of the features, while innovative, are a little surplus to requirements, and the fact that they aren’t really “open backed” in the classical sense alongside their noise-cancelling being passive and not active will put off some more savvy headphone users.
The Sennheiser SPORT True Wireless is available now from 3 May for £119.99 from the Sennheiser website.
