Skullcandy has carved a name for itself in the audio industry as a brand that caters to people looking for affordable audio solutions. The company has overhauled its Zib Wireless Earphones with their new offer – Scalcandy Zib + Wireless Earphones – and the upgrades have added some quality-of-life features as well as tempting splash resistance, which works like a charm. Conservatively priced at Rs 2,499 and Amazon has a discount of Rs 1,990, the wireless earphones certainly fit the budget wireless earphones section very easily. Let’s take a closer look at whether the earphones stood our test or whether they compromised on quality to achieve the elusive price below Rs 2,000.

Performance

We are pleasantly surprised to see the proud sound quality of Skullcandy Jib + Wireless Earphones, especially at this price. Skullcandy packs decent-sized 9mm drivers in each earbud, and the results are quite impressive. The earphones have an unusual combination of boosted bus as well as treble. The latter, at times, though, makes the valley irresistible. Inside War By Poet of fall, You’ll notice that the bass guitar seems a bit muted as more triple-sounding instruments crawl their way across the track. However, at no stage does the word become tiny or unpleasant, which is surprising.

The shaft, for the most part, is deep, strong, and quite consistent, with a mid-range and treble balance that translates well into genres like rock, pop, and especially electronic. But such as classical music Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5It is not reproduced properly according to one’s wishes.

The vocals are quite clear in such tracks Hello By AdeleWhich is specifically designed to allow the voice to fly, however, on such tracks Pull me down By Dream Theater, They may be a bit damaged due to the layout of the instruments present in the song, so layering and separation doesn’t seem to be something that makes Jib + elegant, but we’re tweaking it right now. The heights seem to be sculptural on most of the tracks, however, we were able to take a slight distortion while listening. Fall Out Boy’s Century Only at 100 percent volume. When we lowered the volume to the normal 60 percent, there was no obvious distortion on the same track.

We’ve found that frequency response compatibility is also great, especially if the user reaches the perfect fit and an air-tight seal. The stereo sound of these headphones is also quite decent because we can get accurate placement and localization of instruments and voices. This indicates that the left and right drivers match well. Unfortunately, the soundstage of Jib + leaves much to be desired, as is the case with many budget wireless in-ears.

Passive isolation is quite absent here, especially in the alloy range. You will definitely hear background sound in a noisy office environment or on a vehicle while traveling unless you turn on the volume enough. However, Skullcandy has fascinated us again because the noise leakage in the earphones is extremely minimal even at 70-80 percent high volume.

In terms of performance, the Jib + ticks a lot of boxes of a good pair of budget wireless earphones. Unfortunately, we’ve noticed that these earphones are very poor in call quality. The microphone seems to be ineffective because the person on the other end can only hear the reviewer’s voice if the module containing the mic is brought close to the mouth. Our voices also occasionally sound wrinkled or even gargled, which is not ideal.

Construction and design

One of the foremost complaints about Skullcandy Jib wireless earphones is their build quality and how thin audio cables don’t scream “durable”. The Skullcandy Jib + holds ultra-thin TPE audio cables as the connector for the Airbud, the part between the two pile-shaped modules is reinforced by flat TPE cables that seem much stronger. This wire works like a neck-style band and ensures less tangle.

Earphones have two heavy modules. The left-hand module has three round buttons – the middle pause / play button has a slight indentation and doubles as a phone call answering or device on / off button, the left button increases the volume or avoids tracks when the right one reverses. You’ll also find an LED light in this module that glows every time the earphones are turned on / off and in pairing mode. In addition, the bottom of the hood of a rubberized flap has a micro-USB port with a small groove to allow users to easily pull the flap. This flap is current since the earphones are splash resistant.

The other module on the right flashes the Scalcandy logo on the left side of an extra weight and pill-shaped module to stabilize the earphones around your neck. Overall, we hope the modules were more compact because they look quite heavy and spoil the simple, minimal matte-black aesthetic scallops. Despite this, the earphones are still remarkably light, despite the large size of the module.

The earbuds in the Skullcandy Jib + are quite typical in appearance, however, they have a dual matte-black and glossy-black accent that makes them pop a bit more. The Skullcandy logo again sits comfortably on the back of each earbud. The company has included ear sizes of three sizes – S, M and L as well as a pair of stability gels for extra comfort and safety. We found that medium size tips without stability gel provided our best fit. Stability gels were extremely uncomfortable for reviewers and the sound quality was enhanced by a few notches as they were removed. We encourage you to take some time and find the most suitable one for you as it will basically indicate how the earphones sound to you.

Once you’ve figured out the perfect fit for you, the earphones stay decently stable in the ear, however, the huge modules bounce around if they’re not stuck under your shirt. This tends to pull the earbuds a bit, which makes them a little less stable than other wireless in-ear features with similar designs. Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person.

Features

If you are someone who is constantly on the move, be it traveling or commuting, you will probably appreciate a pair of earphones with splash resistance. Especially if they cost less than Skullcandy Jib +. Although we have some very capable earphones like Sony MDR-XB80BS Extra Bass, Plantronics BackBeat Fit and Jabra Elite Active 65t, they cost a lot more than Skullcandy Jib +. Note: Note that Skullcandy Jib + has no specific IP rating, they are only splash-resistant.

We tested the Skullcandy Jib + for its splash resistance feature and it worked extremely well as they worked perfectly even after getting wet in the last few weeks in Mumbai. Skullcandy did not elaborate on how they achieved their splash resistance, but we think earbuds have a kind of nano-coating. In addition, the flap on the charging port prevents moisture from forming, so be sure to keep this flap closed when you take them out for rotation.

The connection is also quite satisfactory. Audio tracks are rarely missed and lagged behind because the earphones feature Bluetooth 5.0 and seem to hold the 35-foot rated wireless range. Earphones only lost connection over a long distance. Even it was attached to a wall in the middle, which is decent. Unfortunately, this could not be verified when using media content as the earphones displayed below average delays and the discrepancy between audio and video was quite noticeable.

The earphones feature micro-USB charging, as mentioned above, which is ideal for a pair of budget wireless earphones. The 6-hour battery life is decent and the company’s claim is well-tested in our tests because we’ve been able to figure out about 6-and-a-half hours of battery life from earphones. There’s no power-saving feature like anti-power off, so make sure you turn off the earphones once you’re used.

Last but not least, we’ve got a big problem with this device. Skullcandy claims that Jib + has voice assistant support and is marketed as one of the key features of earphones and an upgrade to the original Jib wireless earphones. However, we’ve found that there’s no real way to access Voice Assistant directly from Jib + on your smartphone, which means the device doesn’t actually have voice assistant support … let’s explain further. There are no dedicated buttons on the earphones to fire your voice assistant, so naturally, we assume that there must be some kind of button combination to access the assistant.

And it was the beginning of a two-hour-long process that led the reviewer to pull her hair around at one point. We’ve seen the user manual (something we don’t usually enjoy because we enjoy getting things out), and we’ve got a set of instructions for accessing the pairing mode (press the middle button for 5 seconds), skip the tracks (double + press the button) )) And more. However, there was absolutely no mention of how to access the voice assistant, which made us even more excited. We tried a combination of combinations to get access to the marketing features. Alas, we did not have such luck. In the end, we just tried to say “OK Google” and the assistant was fired immediately. We thought we’d finally come up with a solution through all our trials and tribulations, but it turned out that it was our phone’s microphone that picked up the “OK Google” command and not the earphones that refused to work as we went a few times. A few steps away from our test phone. Skullcandy has really bombed here, with ads for something that doesn’t exist at all.

The last row

Skullcandy Jib + Wireless Earphones are a decent purchase at Rs 1,990, especially for the appropriate sound quality and splash resistance. You get balanced mid and high, as well as a good base push that makes the tracks across different genres sound great. In terms of appearance, Scalcandy keeps it clean and concise, except for the huge modules that can be made a little smaller because they act as a barrier to facial fluidity. Passive isolation and the quality of the call is impressive and the absence of advertising voice assistant features is extremely disappointing. However, if you are able to overcome these problems, most of which are not very important to the average user who wants only one pair of earphones for listening to music, then you have a good pair of wireless earphones that allow users to have a balanced sound profile and under 2,000 2,000. Able to access decent battery life.