ARC 3 Open Ear Earbuds

The sound these produce are exceptional. I am hearing things in songs that I never knew existed. No joke. These even do bad, poorer quality songs magical wonders.I am so happy I ordered these as I have been disappointed with earbuds or headphones until now. They either hurt my ears or just didn’t sound as full and rich.I find these comfortable and very easy to use. I especially like the LED touch screen as a way to control the music if needed.These do need a firmware update which takes a few minutes via BT.I am impressed by the longevity of the battery for both the earphones and the charging unit. I’ve used these for many, many hours since they arrived and they barely go down much at all as far as battery levels.I downloaded the app and you can select options as to what music type you listen to so that it equalizes bass and treble appropriately. Plus there are options such as detecting head movements for answering calls etc. Not something I personally use but a neat feature.I am surprised how wonderful these sound. Clear, true surround sound and a pleasure to use. I definitely feel like my Spotify account is finally getting some premium use after years of premium payments.

I own a few ear buds near the Cleer ARC 3 headphones price point, namely the Jabra Elite 8 Active and the Apple AirPods Pro 2. I received the Jabra’s about a year ago and just recently purchased the AirPods about a month ago (my second pair). Both of these ear buds provide great audio with noise cancellation with the AirPods being a bit better on the noise cancellation and the Jabra’s better with Bluetooth range. My wife has the AirPods as well but cannot wear them for too long without irritating her ears. She has tried other open ear headphones but those have failed in the past due to quality issues. The sound quality also suffered especially on the low end with open ear models. So along comes the Cleer ARC3 open ear headphones in pink and we decided to give them a try. I tried them out over the weekend and compared them to the more traditional ear buds that I own. The sound quality is excellent and compares really well. On my initial test I did notice that the lows where a bit lower with my in ear buds out of the box. I found that I was able to compensate with the Cleer+ App’s custom equalizer settings and adjust it more to my liking. For those that like to fiddle with an equalizer you know what I’m talking about (see my screen capture). This is very similar to the Jabra’s App, where the AirPods sound great right out the box with no adjustment and no ability to adjust. I still found that the in ear models were a hair better as far as overall sound quality, but not by much. The ARC 3’s do not have active noise cancellation which makes sense because of the open ear design, but I didn’t really miss it. Hands free calling with Siri was easy and compared well to the other models. You do have to activate “Intelligent Voice Control” in the Cleer+ App to make this work (at least to pick up calls, I used Siri to make calls without activating this feature). Once activated you can pick up or reject calls by saying “pick up” or “reject call” and control playback of music including volume adjustment with simple commands. The head phones come in an attractive wireless charging case with a cool led screen and a UV sanitizing feature which is exclusive to the ARC 3s over the other models. Set up and pairing was relatively easy with the app immediately prompting me to upgrade the ARC 3s firmware (took several minutes) so allow for that after initial charging. I did find that these have an IPX7 water resistance rating which means that they can handle a quick accidental dip, splashing water or rain making them good for outdoor running or other exercise. The fit was comfortable and secure, getting them onto my ear was different but I adjusted quickly. In summary, these compare well as far as performance and sound to in ear models are comfortable to wear and present a great alternative at a similar price. If you are looking for a quality over the ear headphone, I’d say you’ve found it with the Cleer ARC3s.