# Skullcandy help



## Vaelarsa (Jun 13, 2012)

So I got these because they were the only thing within my budget, and with decent reviews, at Radio Shack.
Problem is, they have a very weird echo-ey sound that I'm not used to, even in shitty Dollar Store headphones.

I'm trying to mess around with Windows' audio settings, as well as the equalizer on Winamp, but the only thing that is getting rid of the echo is putting on full treble, and that still sounds like shit.

Is there any way I can salvage this? Any kind of specific settings in my computer or Winamp that I can mess with?

For the record, they're these ones:
http://www.skullcandy.com/shop/uprock-sc-black

And, if it helps at all, I predominantly listen to music that sounds like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU9bpq03Mcw


Also, for the love of god, please *don't* suggest I buy more expensive headphones, or tell me "you get what you pay for." Not at all realistic for my budget to pay $100+ for a music device, and I can and have bought $5 -10 headphones with better sound quality. I just thought I'd try something different for once.


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## Littlerock (Jun 13, 2012)

I had the very same problem once. Check your computer for a program called "Realtek HD Audio Manager", or something similar. Pre-set PCs sometimes have this installed and already in use, to make up for the fact that their stock speakers are terrible shit. At least, this was the issue with mine. :T

If that program's there, just get to fiddling with the settings.


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## Batty Krueger (Jun 13, 2012)

i have those same ones but I don't have an issue with any echos.  Have you tried it with an iPod or cd player?


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## Lobar (Jun 13, 2012)

The unavoidable answer to your question, unfortunately, is that they sound like crap because they are crap.  You don't need to get really expensive $100+ audiophile stuff, though.  Sennheiser makes decent earphones and they go on sale online for 20bux or less all the time.


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## Teal (Jun 13, 2012)

Maybe just that one is faulty? Like the wires are messed up.


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## Vaelarsa (Jun 13, 2012)

barefootfoof said:


> I had the very same problem once. Check your computer for a program called "Realtek HD Audio Manager", or something similar. Pre-set PCs sometimes have this installed and already in use, to make up for the fact that their stock speakers are terrible shit. At least, this was the issue with mine. :T
> 
> If that program's there, just get to fiddling with the settings.


I'm messing around in it, and now, it just exchanged the echo for a kind of dull booming roar.
I wish I could find a good balance.



d.batty said:


> i have those same ones but I don't have an issue  with any echos.  Have you tried it with an iPod or cd player?


Sound isn't as echo-ey in my phone as my computer, but still kind of bleh.
I don't plan on using my phone as a music device, anyway, because that kills my battery in like five minutes.



Lobar said:


> The unavoidable answer to your question,  unfortunately, is that they sound like crap because they are crap.  You  don't need to get really expensive $100+ audiophile stuff, though.   Sennheiser makes decent earphones and they go on sale online for 20bux  or less all the time.


I've never heard of Sennheiser.

I think my last two pairs of headphones were the lowest end kinds of Sony and Koss, and they sounded fine.
And I didn't have to fuck around with all this equalizer crap.

Do you mean that Skullcandy, the brand, are crap? Or just that generally cheap headphones are crap?


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## Ikrit (Jun 13, 2012)

most likely defective, and if thats the case you can return them if you still can...or just throw them away if you can't....


Vaelarsa said:


> I've never heard of Sennheiser.
> 
> I think my last two pairs of headphones were the lowest end kinds of Sony and Koss, and they sounded fine.
> And I didn't have to fuck around with all this equalizer crap.
> ...


sony and koss make great headphones for the price, skullcandy aren't bad because they are cheap, but because they are well...bad, the only headphones by skullcandy that get good reviews are the flagship models...witch are out of your price range 

Sennhieser is a microphone/headphone company that are said to make some of the best headphones in the world, but their usual sound signatures is more on the "relaxed and balanced" side other then the "fun, upclose and personal" type.


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## Pine (Jun 13, 2012)

Skullcandy, that's your problem right there. Imagine making the worst headphones with mediocre quality and poor durability and spraying a logo on them. That and people just buy them for the name, ignoring quality features (the same thing with Beats by Dre). They're more of a fashion worn around the neck by wannabe audiophiles.

Anyways, with your budget I'd suggest the Sennheiser HD 202. They are great headphones and they go for about $20.


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## CaptainCool (Jun 13, 2012)

yup, skullcandy is definitely the problem here. they are pure shit.
they are just designed to look fancy so that kids buy them but other than that they are absolutely terrible. they do give you a life long warranty for them though as far as i remember so thats kinda cool.

you should stick to the actual hifi brands like sony, koss, sennheiser and audio technecia. they actually do have pretty good headphones in your price range.
id suggest one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD...QC/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1339639260&sr=8-17
http://www.amazon.com/Koss-PortaPro...ZH/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1339639260&sr=8-31 (these are amazing, koss introduced them in 1984 and because they are so perfect they only made VERY slight changes to them over the years)
http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD...TAYI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1339639249&sr=8-3

personally i have these bad boys right here:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-XB70...24SW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339639320&sr=8-1
i love them^^ and i got them for just 40â‚¬ which was an absolute steal!


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## Ikrit (Jun 13, 2012)

CaptainCool said:


> personally i have these bad boys right here:
> http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-XB70...24SW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339639320&sr=8-1
> i love them^^ and i got them for just 40â‚¬ which was an absolute steal!



if the hulk was a headphone, he would be the Sony XB1000


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## CaptainCool (Jun 13, 2012)

Ikrit said:


> if the hulk was a headphone, he would be the Sony XB1000



yeah, they are huge^^ i mean, mine already make me look like im wearing a car on my head but the XB1000s are just ridiculously huge.
but both the xb700 and the xb1000 are super comfy, so the dorky look is totally worth it! i dont even notice them when im wearing them most of the time. 
not to mention that they sound amazing. the base is a little too powerful but with my x-fi titanium soundcard i can keep them under control pretty nicely^^ and you do need to tame them, they do go all the way down to 3Hz afterall! that just doesnt work for every kind of music.


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## Aldino (Jun 13, 2012)

Sony over the ear headphones>Skullcandy+cheaper.


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## Littlerock (Jun 13, 2012)

Man, I never knew that Skullcandy was such shit.
Never had the opportunity to try them out before. This is kind of depressing :T


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## Ikrit (Jun 13, 2012)

barefootfoof said:


> Man, I never knew that Skullcandy was such shit.
> Never had the opportunity to try them out before. This is kind of depressing :T



always do loads of research before buying electronics.

websites like cnet do not count


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## Jaxinc (Jun 14, 2012)

The Sony ones for 20 bucks will sound 10x better than those skullcandy pos headphones that are made for looks and not audio quality, although with constant use the Sony ones will wear out in a matter of months -.-

You can get Gen 1 Creative Aurvana's for 50 bucks now or less on Amazon, fyi, something to save towards.


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## greg-the-fox (Jun 14, 2012)

http://www.headphone.com/
A very useful website with reviews and detailed specs on a wide variety of headphones (mostly high end, but some budget ones as well) You can compare them via visual graphs (search a headphone, click the overview tab and click on the picture of a graph to compare it to others) I recommend you look up some of the headphones people are mentioning, especially the Sennheisers, the low end ones aren't great but they're good for the money.

Comparing a very good, somewhat expensive pair of headphones (Audio Technica ATH-M50) with two shitty but ridiculously popular ones (Beats, and Skullcandy Hesh, yours wasn't on there)

First, frequency response. It's basically how relatively loud each frequency is produced, the flatter is better (for reference, this is about the flattest response possible, $1,600 "best headphones in the world")







Beats drop off on the low end at about 40Hz, which is fine. Relatively flat, not too many extreme dips or peaks. As far as frequency response, these actually look pretty decent, look for something like this or the AT's. But frequency response is NOT everything.

The Skullcandies though... drop off at 100Hz! That is TERRIBLE. No sub bass at all. Really really pathetic high end, very extreme dips and peaks will produce tinny, thin sound. You will find this kind of frequency response in a lot of low end headphones, I've seen a lot worse even. A lot of them will amp up the 100Hz range a lot to compensate for a lack of sub bass. These Skullcandies are the absolute worst, holy shit.

Harmonic Distortion of a 500Hz sine wave is another great way to weed out the bad headphones that might otherwise have seemed decent or even good from their frequency response alone (the Beats in this case) Ideally, you would want to see only a peak at 500Hz and the rest flat (that is not possible, there is always some distortion but the lower the better)






Wow... just. Wow.

So yeah, don't go by reviews alone because most people can't really tell what's good or not unless they're audiophiles, or they've never heard anything better. You will see very high ratings on Amazon for all of these. Don't trust subjective consumer opinions, popularity, price, it means nothing. Only hard data. And audiophiles, they generally know what they're talking about. There are fantastic cheap headphones and terrible expensive headphones. Something as subjective as sound quality is incredibly hard to do research on which products are good or bad. Even if a product's specs check out, it is always best to try them out for yourself first if you have the chance, maybe you know someone who owns a nice pair you can borrow. If you decide to replace these, I wish you luck.


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## Runefox (Jun 14, 2012)

<off-topic>

^ <3 my ATH-M50's and Monster Turbine Pro Coppers. Too bad HeadRoom hasn't done a frequency analysis of the Turbines... I'd like to know, myself, but they sound similar to the M50's.

</off-topic>

<on-topic>

Skullcandy gets their sales by looking 'cool' and having a midrange price tag, but they use the same parts as most other no-name headphone manufacturers. Sennheiser, Sony, Shure, and others are way nicer for the price.

</on-topic>


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## Vaelarsa (Jun 14, 2012)

Alright, so I'm trying to take all of this stuff into consideration, and understand the importance of the frequency graphs, even though I'm still kind of confused as hell and mentally going "durhurhur culur lynes and weerd numbars."

I'm definitely going to try and take the Skullcandys back for a refund, and probably go spend an extra $10 at Walmart for these:
http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sennheiser-hd-203.php
(Which, despite being listed on the Headroom site as $50, are $40 at Walmart.)

I know I shouldn't trust reviews fully, and do my research, but a lot of the more complicated details (like how much gigatetrabiblatelehertz KXz001^9 something puts out) sounds like moonspeak and is lost on me for the most part, unless I have something specific to sit down and point at for a point of reference (the flat line thing, for instance, helped).

I just can't stand to listen to the Skullcandy ones, regardless of how I adjust them. They instantly give me a pounding headache.


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## Jaxinc (Jun 15, 2012)

Always do research, there are a LOT of new headphone companies coming out of the woodwork lately, Skullcandy is one of those new companies that prioritizes looks over audio quality.

Personally I prefer Creative Labs headphones because they've been around since the 90s and have been the leader in PC audio for years. I've had my Creative Aurvana's for 4+ years and they still are the best sounding headphone I've used in the sub 100 dollar range.


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