As someone who cannot stand listening to the music played at my gym, I was quite excited to receive Cleer’s Roam Sport earbuds. It might seem trivial to just put on any old ear buds or headphones when working out but that doesn’t always lead to the best experience. I can’t use my wired IEMs as it is quite annoying having to be wired to your phone during workouts. Using wireless adapters for them also isn’t a clean solution as all of the features you expect out of a bluetooth earbud isn’t available or convenient. Even using Airpods Pros or the Airpods Max isn’t perfect for working out. Instead of moving to something like the Beats Fit Pros, we have the Cleer Audio Roam Sports, the compliment of the Cleer Roam NC. 

The Roam Sports feature most of the capabilities you’d expect from more expensive earbuds. It has IP X4 sweat and water resistance, noise cancellation, an ambient noise mode, and touch controls. There is also an app that can be used to customize the experience. While it does not have a crazy amount of customization, all of the basics are there. Noise Cancellation can be adjusted using a fader, tap gestures can be changed to your preference, and there is an equalizer to tune the sound. On iOS, you can even use the app to monitor the battery life of each earbud while android can do it natively.

As a more active focused pair of earbuds, I was very happy with how good secure the Roam Sport was in my ears. The default wing loops were a tad too tight in my smaller ears but the smaller size that came in the box was perfect. Compared to working out with Airpod Pros or my MoonDrop Arias, I never have to worry about the Roam Sport falling out. I was especially pleased to be able to run on the treadmill without needing to constantly push an earbud into my ear when they were slipping out. 

The sound quality on the Cleer Roam Sport is nothing to note about. On first listen, I was initially underwhelmed with the sound signature because it’s a more balanced and plain sound but with vocals being elevated. I was also surprised that for a sports focused earbud, the bass didn’t have much of an emphasis. The soundstage is the biggest disappointment but you wouldn’t be trying to pick out individual instruments when doing a strenuous workout. I would not get these if you’re looking for sound quality but it has an enjoyable quality sound.

I was actually quite surprised with the battery life. It is advertised as having 5 hours of use and I did have the Roam Sports last that long with mixed usage. I only had the earbuds run out of charge once after a very long work session. This does come with a caveat that the buds do not get super loud. They are not quiet but sometimes you want to blast music while working out and these won’t go that high without the Roam Sports playing a chime to let you know you hit the volume limit. I would say the peak volume plays a little louder than a comfortable listening level. This can become a problem if any content other than music is played and is normalized at a lower volume. For example, some content on youtube were only listenable on the highest volume. 

I would describe the noise cancellation performance as just decent. Coming from devices such as the Airpods Pros, Max, and Sony XM4s, it was not a surprise that the noise cancellation did not keep up but it wasn’t disappointing. The mode is automatically on when you put on the earbuds and does its job at reducing ambient noise noticeably which is more than can be said about cheap earbuds that have the feature just for marketing. While it won’t clear out a noisy crowd, it will bring it down to a more comfortable level. Playing music combined with the noise cancellation should block out most outside noise.

If you’re used to how natural sounding the transparency mode on airpods sound, you might be displeased with how the ambient mode performs here. While it isn’t horrible, I would only turn it on if I needed to. It may sound very artificial but the feature does get the job done. I was able to order food at a mildly noisy fast food restaurant and listen for my order without needing to take out either of the buds. I definitely would not want to try to hold a conversation using the feature however. 

After getting used to the sound signature and customizing it to be more bass heavy, I started to really enjoy using the Roam Sports, even when I wasn’t working out. The only downfall of these buds that would keep me from using it as a daily driver is the lack of in-ear detection. For $60 in the regular Roam NC, it is excusable but for $100, it’s hard to ignore. Maybe I’m spoiled by Airpods but I am so used to just being able to take out my earbuds to pause my earbuds and talk to someone that it made talking to people while using the Roam Sport an annoying experience. Every time I ran into someone while listening to music, I would take out the earbuds expecting the music to automatically pause and when it didn’t, I would need to awkwardly either pull out my phone to pause the music or just take out the other earbud. This is a first world problem that some people won’t notice but it really did make my experience using these that much more annoying. This is a pretty good pair of sports earbuds but I would look into other options such as refurbished Beats Fit Pros before fully recommending this one.