Why...

Skullcandy generally put fashion ahead of function, that's not to say that hey are bad though.

Lots of skull candy items do get good reviews, I know that celebrities are paid to endorse products, but most celebrities won't endorse crappy products... I mean how does it look when x band promotes a set of phones that sound bad, and lack clarity, it speaks about their ability to perceive sound, and thus he quality of their music.

The long and the short of it are, skull candy are not audiophiles territory, but they are god enough. Certainly a lot better than most cheap headphones.
 
I'm using the earbuds that came with my friends ipod still. Only one works. Good enough quality for me.
 
I'm really ocd with how headphones sound. I just got a Samsung galaxy player 4.0 a little while ago and the earbuds looked good they were once that come with 3 size silone tips for noise isolation and let me tell you they sound like crap they have no bass at all and don't even isolate sound. They too looked like skullcandy.

As for skullcandy I fine their quality to fluctuate even with the same model phones. I have gone through 3 pairs of inkd buds in the past 4 years. My first pair sounded amazing the bass was nice and the treble was clear but then they broke and I replaced them with the same exact ones again but they sounded just ok and after they broke the third pair I got sounded like crap it sounded like a mosquito was playing the music there was only high treble and no bass what so ever.

I am in the market for good quality earbuds and people keep telling me "oh I am a total audiophile and I think skullcandys are amazing" but really they just want to have them for a fashion statement. Others tell me get beats by dr dre but I have never tried anything like that because they actually are expensive. To me they sound like yet another crap product endorsed by a celebrity but I have never actually gotten an opportunity to test them out for myself.

Back like 7 years ago the store I went to was more than happy to let me test headphones before I buy. They would unbox them and let me listen to my music to see if I liked the quality but now under new ownership they tell me you have to buy because they tell me they can't sell them once they are opened.
 
I've been using a mixture of mid-end Bose and Sennheiser over-ears for a few years now, I notice that alot of Sennheiser products fit nicely in the same bracket as Skullcandies and do the job so much better. Being a Nightwish fan I listen to alot of Nightwish, and Skullcandies managed to make even my favorite band sound ghastly with their poor factory EQing. Unless you listen to nothing but drop-beat stuff they'e pretty 'stuck' I suppose. As for quality, in the time I've had my CX-200s (not even that long, few months) my friend has gone through 2 or 3 pairs of whatever-the-model-is skullcandy in-ears.


Beats/Dr Dre are an expensive one-trick pony. Listen to anything but whatever they call the genre Dr Dre is part of, and they're again terrible. Too much emphasis on bass, not enough of anything else.


I know at one point Skullcandy were considered a price-point (for people who can't afford to delve into Audiophile territory) but now there are a plethora of similarly prices options from Sony, Sennheiser, Koss and Bose that sort of chuck every model out of the market lol. Fashion accessory like you say.
 
it depends on what you want to listen to.

with ear buds.
open backed headphones will loose sound, meaning that you have to turn the volume up.
open backs increases clarity at some frequency ranges, this means that those ranges appear louder.
open back also tend to have less isolation, which means that they are better for cyclists as they can stay aware of their environment.
silicone tips do provide some security (as in they help them stay in your ears more than isolation on open backs.


sealed units tend to lack clarity in bass notes, and often rely on the silicone tip producing a tighter seal in your ear so that they can transmit bass to your head rather than playing it in the air.
the three cup tips, personally I find uncomfortable, if you've got a pair of headphones like this that you find uncomfortable. try cutting off the cups until they are comfortable, but be aware, the reason that they are uncomfortable is likely that they are made to be forced into your head, to transmit bass, the more cups you cut off, the looser (and more comfortable) the fit, but the less bass you'll hear too.

it was the mid 90's when we first saw ear buds with bits that extend into the ear canal, basically anything making contact with your ear canal is going to improve bass response when compared to the same driver just resting on your outer ear.


personally, I find anyone claiming to be an audiophile and showing ear buds in the same sentence to be a massive nonsense.

if you're a real audiophile then go for proper over the ear cans, they have a decent sized driver that's capable of producing all the frequencies that you're interested in. they tend to have foam surrounds and so isolate noise well, (not as well as closed backed ear buds that also seal your ear canal with silicone tips though).
even cheaper over the ear cans have as good audio performance as a lot of people claim to be getting from mid priced ear buds.
 
At this point I've got Sennheiser PX100 - II's and Philips SHL8800 that I use (mainly the senns) when I'm not at work, I only use in-ears for when im about the office because the supervisors tell us to keep it on the down-low because the managers aren't too keen on it.

I was just using my in-ears as an example of Skullcandy build quality xD Im going to get http://www.bose.co.uk/GB/en/home-an...elling-headphones/quietcomfort-15-headphones/ or something similar soon, but that's a bit more of an investment. Might use my upcoming tax rebate on them.
 
For the price, I've found Skullcandy Ink'd earbuds to be pretty good.

Good enough for me, at any rate, which means the music isn't muddy or tinny.

I have sensitive ear-canals, so I need a small silicone bud and even then I can only wear them for short amounts of time.

Frankly, I would love to get a good around-the-ear cans with adjustable tension (I get headaches when my brain is squeezed), but I don't have the budget for that. Also, they aren't exactly portable. So I carry the Skullcandy's...
 
I remember my Skullcandy earbuds. I thought they were great back in high school, but later I realized they weren't all that. My Koss Especially bass, I found it to be pretty muddy and didn't reach very low. I've been spoiled by my Beyerdynamic DT 880s though. The Koss KSC75 clip-ons I use at school sound much better and comparing new prices were cheaper.
 
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