I impulse bought these on clearance at a store when out shopping with my family. I didn’t expect them to be as good as they are either, but I wanted something relatively cheap which were better than the trash Bluetooth headphones I had bought previously. They sound great, are light, feel high quality, and last for quite a while.
The Specs
These are in-ear module style headphones which have a “collar” which goes around your neck when listening. The design means they have a bigger battery while feeling lighter than the kind with the battery in the middle of the wires, and the buttons are easier access. They’re light enough I’ve forgotten I have them on when I have the buds out of my ears, but they have survived my kid which means they’re solid.
The listed battery life is 8 hours which is about in line with what I get (I actually get more usually). I use them for about 2-3 hours a night and only have to charge them twice a week at most if I use them every night. I was originally going to take away a few points for a false battery life because I thought they were supposed to be 12 hour battery life headphones and they got at most 10 hours on a good charge with low volume before I reread the box. The battery rating is for a higher volume than I use apparently, so I get an extra hour or two per charge which just sweetens the pot.
There isn’t a frequency chart or anything for them that I could find, but they sound great and really isolate noise (they have a volume reduction on par with either my 12 DB or 15DB reducing earplugs). They beat all of my other IEM headphones (wired or not), and actually rival my cheapest set of mixing, monitor headphones for sound quality. You get bass with these, just don’t expect to really feel it since they’re still IEM drivers. That being said, I don’t feel like my music is missing anything whatsoever when listening with these unlike with a lot of IEM headphones.
Bluetooth
I normally dislike Bluetooth due to the compression on a lot of cheaper DACs and older versions of Bluetooth as well as the issue with range and the fact they have to be charged, but these don’t feel like Bluetooth headphones except I can stand up and walk off whenever I want without bringing my computer with me. They are easy to set up in Linux too. They’re easy to pair and pretty much idiot proof to get setup on anything I tested them on.
The range is quite good. I can wear them and walk out of my house to take the trash out and I can go to basically every room in my house without the signal breaking up too bad. They actually work about as well as my WiFi in that regards, which is impressive. There is a little breakdown if there are a lot of walls and doors between me and the computer past about 10 meters (which is still great for class 2 Bluetooth), but even then, they usually chug along quite nicely anywhere in the house.
The Verdict
If you want some nice, quality Bluetooth headphones which last for ages and don’t break the bank, the Skullcandy Ink’d Wireless series will serve you well. I would have paid the full asking price for these if I knew they were this good when I bought them. They sound great, feel great (if you even really feel them), and work great. These are my favorite in-ear headphones now, more so than my nice wired ones.
Get them here.