Skullcandy

I have used many headphones and earbuds over the years. Shure, Sennheiser, Sony, Audio Technica, Grado, and FiiO of various types, circumaural… Read more

(over-ear), supra-aural (on-ear), earbuds and in-ear including in-ear monitors (IEMs). Open and closed headphones. The only ones I have little experience ironically is active noise cancelling headphones like the Bose QuietComfort which sets the standard of noise cancellation headphones. They all have their benefits and disadvantages.

I bought these Skullcandy as a backup in-ear headset with microphone for work, for taking calls, where basic wired, passive noise cancelling earbuds are preferred. Price was the most important criteria, not sound quality, especially given the limited frequency range of dialogues - 300Hz to 3k Hz. Sure enough. Comparing with my other earbuds or ear phones, these cheap Skullcandy lack crisp / high frequencies for music listening. Microphone interestingly also has the same short coming too - a little insensitive / lean somewhat on high frequency and gain. If your prefer a bassy boomy sound that is not fatiguing, then these maybe a candidate for your consideration. It is definitely not for critical music listening, if you dig every note, every little tinkle intended by the music creator. You might just not be able to hear them with these SkullCandy JIB earbuds.

Construction is on the cheaper side. There is no silicon cable that is more resistant to kinks. The mic / button section feels cheap. The Skullcandy logo is moulded into the silicone tip to my horror. I feel this creates a poorer seal and poorer passive noise cancellation. I don't have measurements so maybe just my bias given the silicon tips are not smooth. Only standard tips and small tips are supplied. Most other manufacturers will supply large, standard and small tips.

Packaging is basic. There is no removing the earbuds from the packaging without destroying the packaging. So returning these earbuds for change of mind would be difficult.

Thank God I bought this for work, for taking calls with narrow frequency / sound quality requirements. Hence these SkullCandy JIB earbuds are adequate. Only shortcoming is the mic which is not as sensitive as some others.

For the price, there is nothing cheaper than these JIBs and these JIBs are obviously manufactured for the price. I am ok with that and do not intend to return them even if the packaging weren't destroyed. Four stars is largely driven by price vs performance.