I need to call Sennheiser out for some poor pricing practices that have been ongoing for a while now. A German company priding itself on a lot of manufacturing done in Europe has significantly worse pricing in Europe than anywhere else, especially compared to the US. How is this even viable when the drivers are made elsewhere and then shipped to the US? This is far beyond the usual seen with other products, so I do want this rectified sooner rather than later.

But let's take $80 as the price point for the Sennheiser CX True Wireless, especially since US pricing is best considered for comparisons in general, where the direct competitors tested here so far are from the likes of Padmate, 1MORE, Lypertek, Cleer, Tronsmart, and a bunch of other Chinese companies. Most of these are using a similar, if not identical, Qualcomm chipset with Bluetooth 5.2, cVc microphones, and hybrid ANC options. Some go further by making the case more technologically competent with fast and Qi wireless charging, and a few others add more novel features, including personalized sound signatures as with the likes of 1MORE with SoundID. Having decent tuning paired with some EQ options is expected in this price range, and I was eager to see what a mainstream brand can do.

As it turns out, not too much. The CX TWS is Sennheiser's least expensive TWS set, and one of the least feature-rich ones, too. Even some sets costing about half as much do better in this regard, which in itself would not have been a dealbreaker if the sound signature and listening experience backed it up. After all, with Sennheiser claiming a lot of great things about its single driver implementation with its TrueResponse transducer, as opposed to 99% of all TWS sets which also use a single dynamic driver, and the brand having a rich history with successful audiophile products and mainstream appeal, I expected better than the competition, but was left disappointed. Tonality and technicalities are also lacking. I don't really see any reason to get these for the money, especially in non-US regions, unless you absolutely need to show off the Sennheiser logo on your ears.