Skullcandy Titans SCS2TTBZ-CZ Earbuds – Chrome

L.Moore

at 9:03 pm

I got these to go with my Cowon iaudio U3, which has very good audio quality (and had good earbuds, but the cat got them and thought they were a nice, chewable toy, unfortunately). So I wanted new earbuds that could get the best out of a fairly pricey Mp3 player. The Titans are excellent: I would say that the sound quality is equal to my £65 Sennheiser on-ear headphones. Packaging is good, build quality is really excellent, and they look good too.

This is what you get in the box:

Packaging: almost impenetrable blister pack with various inserts. The decorative skull logo inside the front of the packet is a removable sticker.

Earbuds: titanium I think, very solid build, lots of choice of colours, L or R marked clearly and neatly on the back, cute skull design etched onto the metal at the back. I got the purple ones.

Foamies: choice of two kinds of cover. Out of the box these come with coloured, silicon covers (bright yellow in the case of the purple model which I got), but two pairs of grey memory foam (“Comply” brand) foamies are also included.

Flex: a very long, solid quality coloured wire (green in my case), with transparent coating, giving an unusual see-through appearance to the flex. Fused at the top so that you can separate out the earbud wires for as far down the flex as you like. Not asymmetric though (i.e. on these, the right hand earpiece flex is the same length as the left one).

Volume: a neat, cylindrical volume slider is set into the flex, same metal and colour as the earpieces.

Case: a small, round, zipped case with a cool skull design on the side, hard on the front and mesh at the back. You can zip the headphones and spare foamies (there’s a tiny internal pocket for these) into this and hang it from a key-ring or belt. About 2 inches in diameter so not cumbersome. I’ve been carrying spare micro-SD cards in there as well.

Documentation: not a lot. A small safety leaflet (“don’t wreck your hearing, kids”) plus some technical info on the box itself.

Plug: very firmly attached to the flex, same coloured metal as the earpieces and slider (with neat, etched lines as a nice decoration), and a gold-plated 3.5mm jack. Fits very firmly into my Mp3 player and also my PC’s headphone slot, with a satisfying clunk as it fits into place. I could probably lift the whole PC tower just by the Titan plug without it bending or coming out.

My experience with these:

fantastic sound quality, but you need to experiment a bit with the earbud covers because they give a quite different experience depending on which you choose. I have small ears and found both the silicon and foam earbud covers were a snug fit, blocking almost all external sounds. I also tried them with a generic, normal foam cover which I had spare from my last earbuds. Actually I prefer these. The sound quality seems to be basically neutral, but with a noticeably clearer treble using the silicon buds, and a much deeper bass using the foamies. The depth and richness of sound is amazing given the size and price-range, and they responded well to the JetEffect equaliser thingy on my MP3 player, pumping extra bass when I chose the “rock” setting and picking out the treble on the higher setting. In guitar music I could hear the player breathing! DVD soundtrack on my PC was also a bit of a revelation. I hadn’t realised I was missing so much.

There is some “fumble” noise from touching the flex, but unlike some other reviewers (see Amazon.com reviews) I didn’t find this any worse than any other earbuds.

The longer-than-average flex is not really a problem and has the added benefit of making these very useful earbuds for plugging into my PC eg. when listening to DVDs late at night. Their audio quality is better than my Dell speakers, and of course it saves the neighbours from having to listen to Cowboy Bebop at 1 am…

Others’ experience:

Lots of US reviews mention that flex noise (i.e. thumping/crunching sounds when touching the lead) was a problem with these. Others say that they didn’t like one or the other types of earbud cover (some preferred the silicon). Also that the colour on the non-chrome model tends to wear off, rather as it does on jewellery made out of the same material. Others thought the sound was either too fruity a bass or two scratchy a treble! In general though they seem to be very popular. From my experience I have to say that flex noise isn’t an issue, and most people should be able to sort out how to make these sound their best just by changing the covers around (or using different foamies from another make, as I have done). As for the wear on the purple titanium, I’m looking forward to this: like “distressed” furniture I happen to like this kind of effect.

These have got to be about the best available price-wise, with a better build quality than some of the others in a similar range. For example Skullcandy Inkd, which are great but seem a lot more flimsy, and ipod earbuds, which aren’t terrible but which just aren’t in the same league as these. If you’re looking to spend this kind of amount, then go for Titans is my advice. Just make sure they don’t get nicked, because they look really cool!

Rating: 5 / 5

Adeel Qayum

at 12:10 am

these earphones are ace. they are worth the money and recently bought this item to replace my ipod touch earphones and the skullcandy ones are well better. very good bass and they are very loud so well worth it give it a go
Rating: 5 / 5