This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This is my fifth set of BT in-ear, wireless earbuds, As a category they continue to improve, longevity continues to improve, These Skullcandy Indy Evo's claim 30h (6h+24h from charging case). I fully charged mine when I got them, then paired them with my iPhone, which was trouble free. I then ran them through Tara Labs Noise burns in tones for 5h 45m, when the right earbud was exhausted; so very close to the 6h quoted. This is the first set that I have that uses BT 5.0. BT 5.0 should improve battery life, but not sound quality. I installed the SkullCandy software and the Tile software, as these headphones allow you to "Find" them using the Tile find me app. This all want smoothly, and is a neat feature. The Skullcandy app also makes a big deal about Audiodo, and it's usefulness. Well after some set up searching, I found that the Indy Evo's don't support this, clearly not obvious from their app (-1 star, disappointing, seemed like a good feature).
Then on to the really important part, how do they sound/fit. I generally move to the next larger silicone earbud surround, but after testing I found the standard silicon cushion worked just fine. No on to Boston's first album; More than a feeling was very crisp, the high's very nice, on Foreplay/Long time the fade out fade in separation was excellent, the subtle build up was nearly perfect, the bass was a bit muddled, it was there but not quite as pronounced as I'd hoped. Here I looked to their app to see if there was an equalizer setting to boost the low end. But there are only 3 settings, Music, Podcast and Movie. and it can't be changed from the app, you have to try taping the earbud twice then pressing dows for 2s to change. VERY awkward, usually I caused the song to change, eventually I listened to each, clearly Music was best for music (duh) podcast enhanced the spoken word, (worked well), while Movie boosted the "center" audio, stereo separation was diminished, but the mid range was boosted. I'm accustomed to included software offering the ability to create a custom sound profile, I think this would have helped a lot, especially since the missing Audiodo software apparently does this very professionally. Very disappointing, guess they could fix this w/software in the future. While on this point they have a Ambient/non Ambient setting that allows you to hear the sound around you with the earbuds in. They do a pretty poor job of this, much worse than what I'm accustomed to, but that being said I rarely use this feature. I took a phone call at this point, and the quality I heard was good but the person I was talking too, found it difficult to hear me.
Back to the music, Pink Floyd's masterpiece; DSOTM. Speak to Me sounded great, I'd have preferred a little more volume, but I was at 100%. The subtle tones were great, but as the song builds it lacked some oomph, that higher volume would have aided (Maybe a custom EQ setting...) The highs of Time were excellent, these earbuds provide a crystal clear high end, they excel here. Then Great Gig In the sky's ethereal voices, nicely done, but more bass/volume would have been nice. Money faired better but it's much louder. The rest was well above average for earbuds.
All told these good are very good earbuds, that would really benefit from a bett/more complete software package. The are clearly behind the curve in this regard. If this were improved I'd certainly recommend these earbuds, BUT this needs to be addressed by them, they sound very good, but with a personal sounds profile (equalizer settings) they could be great. Skullcandy seems to understand this as they have partnered with Audiodo to provide an improved audio product via software based on your hearing/environment.
