So I few months ago I said that I felt that Skullcandy was on the up and up. Personally
I really love the build quality of the new Skullcandy Crusher Evo’s and the Skullcandy
Hesh ANC’s are a great pair of entry level ANC headphones. So I decided, hey its check
out the Skullcandy Indy ANC’s. Now these earbuds are decent but personally im more
of a fan of Skullcandy’s headphones than their earbuds.
Regarding pricing, the Indy ANC’s retail for $130 which is not bad at all given their
feature set. But you definitely have to make sacrifices when it comes to their build quality.
Nonetheless the Indy ANC’s are still a decent pair of earbuds and im not really mad at them.
So if you want to pick these earbuds up they’ll be linked down below.
Now as always with any pair of earbuds lets check out the case. The Skullcandy’s have
a decently sized case for everyday carry. But it is noticeably larger than your AirPods,
AirPods Pro, Galaxy Buds Plus, or Galaxy Buds Pro’s case. And this Skullcandy case is
also ever so slightly larger than your one plus buds case. You can definitely daily drive
the Skullcandy’s without noticing them too much when they’re in your pocket, but paying
a premium for those more main stream earbuds does mean you get a noticeably smaller case…
which could be important for some people. I know it is for me. Now as for the build
quality case itself… I think this is one a the biggest weak points for these earbuds.
Now don’t get me wrong this case is fine… but it doesn’t feel anywhere as premium
as these other brands and it also feels less premium than the One plus buds Which retail
for 80 bucks. The case its self feels very much
like a toy, the lid doesn’t snap open or close, and the magnets in this case are a
little on the weaker side.
However this case does have wireless charging which is still a little rare for earbuds in
this price range and this could be a big deal for people who have a phone that supports
powering sharing. But just as you’d expect, this case also charges via a USB C port as
it should.
Now when it comes to battery life, over all its decent… With their ANC turned on these
earbuds have an advertised combined battery life of 19 hours. The earbuds themselves can
go for 5 straight hours and the case can supply almost 3 full charges. And with their ANC
turned off, these earbuds have an advertised combined battery life of 32 hours… the earbuds
themselves can go for 9 straight hours.
So if you’re someone that works retail or in a warehouse, if you use these earbuds with
their ANC turned off these should be able to keep up with you for those long shifts
on a single charge.
But now lets talk about the earbuds themselves… the indy’s are a pair of in ear earbuds
that fit like your standard pair of in ear ear buds. As in they go into your ear canal
a decent amount just like how the Galaxy Buds Plus do and the Sennheiser CX 400BT’s do.
Which is good for creating a seal to passively block out noise and it provides a secure fit.
But these earbuds also have adjustable ear fins which really helps with that lock down.
Over all these earbuds fit super secure, but they do feel a little cumbersome and these
are definitely better suited for people who don’t mind in ear earbuds. Cause if you
are looking for something thats a little more comfortable then you’ll might want to go
with like either the Galaxy Buds Pro, Jabra Elite 85T’s or AirPods Pro which don’t
go in super deep into your ear canal… or you could always go with either the Galaxy
Buds Live, AirPods, or OnePlus Buds which don’t go into your ear canal at all. Nonetheless
we are starting to get to a point in this product segments where there are different
types of fits for different tastes which I think is great.
Now when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, each earbud establishes a connection with
your phone. So if you just want use one earbud at a time, you can use either one its doesn’t
matter. And this is the type of connection setup that we want to see from earbuds in
2021. My only critique here is that I does take these earbuds a few seconds to get connected…
cause with most other earbuds its just instant.
But from a performance standpoint these earbuds do have zero latency across the board when
watching movies or videos on your phone and when it comes to audio codecs, these earbuds
are strictly using SBC. (CHECK THIS)
But now lets talk about listing to music with these earbuds. Now these earbuds have an app,
and from this app you can choose from 3 different EQ settings. Theres music mode which is the
best sounding one here, there’s podcast mode which severely reduces the bass on these
earbuds, and then there’s movie mode who’s bass is similar to music mode, but the mids
and highs are a little reduced making them sound a little shallow. Overall I just recommend
that you use these earbuds while in the music mode all the time. Now with their music mode
EQ these earbuds have strong bass but also very well defined mids and highs… over all
the indy’s deliver a fun and dynamic listening experience. But from a performance standpoint
the bass on these earbuds does try to resonate but does get a little muddy, these earbuds
do sound a little narrow but most importantly at higher volumes the mids and highs on these
earbuds do get a little fuzzy. And over all these earbuds do get pretty loud… so personally
I don’t use these earbuds past 85 maybe 90 percent volume. But overall these earbuds
do sound fun and they should be able to please your average user. But if sound quality
is a big deal to you then you’ll defeneitly want to check out the Sennheiser CX 400BT’s
while they’re on sale for $100
Now before we move on, I do have to point out that Skullcandy’s app does give you
personal sound where you go through this hearing test and you’ll get a custom EQ thats just
right for. Personally ive never really like this and I just wish that Skullcandy would
update their app to just give you manual control over the EQ of these earbuds.
Now when it comes to the media controls on these earbuds… they’re using touch pads.
You can play and pause your music, you can skip a track, go back a track and adjust the
volume of your music all from the earbuds themselves. However, the layout of these touch
pads is very different from your standard pair of earbuds. Single tapping is for adjusting
your volume. Double taping is for playing and pausing, tapping and holding is for skipping,
and to cycle between your ANC settings you Tap, Tap and hold. So definitely it does take
a while to learn the controls on these earbuds. Now the accuracy on these touch pads is decent…
but personally I wish you would get a feed back tone to let you know when these touch
pads register an input like either Galaxy Buds or Sennheiser’s earbuds do. Cause I
feel there’s always this sense of uncertainty when im trying to use these touch pads.
But just keep in mind, these earbuds don’t have proximity sensors in them so they aren’t
going to automatically pause your music when you take them out of your ears. Which could
be a big deal for some people cause proximity sensors are a very standard feature these
days.
Now when it comes to the active noise cancelation on these earbuds… this isn’t their main
selling point. The ANC On these earbuds comes nowhere close to blocking out as much noise
as either the Bose QC earbuds, Jabra Elite 85T’s or even the 75T’s for that matter,
or AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro. And quiet frankly the ANC On these earbuds has a lot
of white noise to it…
So personally im not too impressed by the active noise cancelation on these earbuds…
but their ambient mode on the other hand isn’t half bad. It sounds fairly natural and there
isn’t too much hissing in the back ground. Actually, these earbuds have less hissing
the back ground than the Galaxy Buds Pro’s. And their microphone array does a decent job
of blocking out wind noise when walking out doors.
So with all that being said, the Skullcandy Indy ANC are a decent pair of budget friendly
earbuds. They have a decent ambient mode, they sound fairly fun, their case has wireless
charging, and they have a decently long battery life. However their active noise cancelation
isn’t super effective and it also has a lot of white noise in the back ground. But
if you’re someone that’s on a strict budget… these are still a decent pick up. Now even
though these earbuds do have a decent feature set… just keep in mind you are going to
have to make some sacrifices when it comes to build quality.