Although there is an unequivocal similarity between the design of the AirPods and the Scalcandy indie earphones, they are distinguished by their varied price points, the indie price being half that of the AirPod. At Rs 7,499, these are definitely within the budget range of real wireless earphones, however, let’s find out if there is any compromise between the audio and the general experience they offer.

In the box

– Indie Truly Wireless Earbuds

– Argeles (S, M, L)

– Stability gel (L)

– Charging case

– Micro-USB charging cable

– User Guide

– 2 year warranty guide

Construction and design

Scalcandy’s indie true wireless earphones embrace the ‘pipe-style’ design that has been popularized by Apple AirPod and is increasingly adapted to true wireless earphones. They are slightly thicker than the AirPod and come with stability gels and tips to improve the fitting. Stability gels have really worked for us, providing much better and safer fit. In addition, Indy also plays a sound-isolating design, using silicone tips that close your ears and effectively blend in the sounds around you.

The charging case, again, looks a lot like the AirPods case, but it looks a lot more ‘plastic’ and not quite premium on hand; However, this is a tradeoff that most people would be willing to pay for this price. It comes with 3 LED charging indicators that tell you the condition of the battery in the case. It has a micro-USB charging port underneath, and in the age of the USB Type-C port on most devices, it’s frustrating because we don’t have to carry extra chargers just for earphones. When you put the phones in a case with durability gels, the case doesn’t close just as satisfactorily when the gels are closed, but again, if you open the gels, the earphones fall deep into the case and are just a little harder to remove. Because the best fit for this reviewer’s ear was with stability gels, I often had to re-examine the lid for closing the case and not hearing the reassuring magnetic snap. It may sound like a nitpicking, but these are the things you notice when you take them out and put them back in the case a few times a day.

Controls

The back of the indie earbud is decorated with the Scalcandy logo, which is not just extravagant. Instead, this part of the earbud is touch-sensitive and allows users to control their actions. Enabled touch controls include playing / pausing music with a double-tap, changing tracks with long presses (left side for the previous track and right side for the next), single tap to increase or decrease the volume (right tap to increase and left). ) Tap to reduce) and a double-tap to answer calls

The process of pairing these earphones is also quite simple. If you remove the earphones from their case, they will turn on automatically and vice versa. To pair with a new device, you need to press the back of the left earbud for 3 seconds and then connect your phone to the device named ‘indie’. The whole process is quite intuitive and we have not crossed any barriers at all.

Features

The earphones have an IP55 rating which means they are dust, sweat and water resistant. They work well in light rain, in the gym and can withstand light splash of water. Don’t even think about taking them to the pool. When it came to fitting the earphones, the reviewer tried his best to drop them and saw a right ass jumping around in a corridor and shaking his head like a dog with a bucket of water thrown over it. Now, this obviously varies from person to person, because our ears are all made unique, but if one of the three given gel sizes fits correctly, they certainly won’t fall off easily.

In terms of connectivity, the earphones have the latest Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. The pairing is almost instantaneous and the connection range is also quite impressive. We were able to leave our test phone (a Samsung Galaxy S10 +) on the platform where our test center is and walk down the stairs and everything below the office without any loss of connectivity. Only when we exited through the main door, placing two layers of concrete between us and the phone, did the earbuds lose connection.

In terms of battery life, Skullcandy claims that indie earphones will provide up to 16 hours of battery life (for both the charging case and the earbud). Take these claims with a tablespoon of salt, as our tests have shown that earphones can last about three and a half hours, while charging cases last a little over 12 hours.

Performance

Battery life we ​​have already covered, but with these devices the sound quality is much more important. It’s a hit and miss a bit here, honestly. Sleep By Poet of fall Sounds pretty decent with good soundstaging and a decent presentation of middle and high. However, the sound quality, in general, has a lot of treble push which often makes it clearly bright. While this may seem tolerable with some well-recorded tracks, you will be able to feel the harshness in others. Brightness leads to prolonged listening fatigue.

Myth By LSD (Labrinth, Sia and Diplo) show pronounced distortion at high frequencies, especially at timestamp 2.35. However, this only happens when the volume is kept at 80 percent or more, which is not deaf or anything else, it is slightly higher than our normal hearing volume of 65 to 75. Century By Fruit Out Boy Timestamp 0.39 also encountered similar problems. In addition, the bus feels like a sore spot on these earphones – it simply lacks punches and grit and often provides a frustrating representation of the base parts of the track. Radioactive By Imagine a dragon The track seemed rather uncomfortable as the usual-punchy bass was as good as missing. The track has also been distorted at high frequencies. Overall, indie earphones seem to be more suitable for warmer tracks Something about us By Daft punk.

The quality of the microphone is also not satisfactory. Although we could clearly hear the person on the other line, our voices were alleged to be too soft or too distant at the other end. It is elevated in crowded places like a railway station, where the earphone house has a significant amount of background noise despite noise reduction technology. We’ve even tested the quality of calls over the internet on WhatsApp and Hangouts so it’s not a network issue.

The last row

For the asking price, scallop candy indie earphones are quite a decent purchase. They offer a ton of features like touch control, IP resistance, long battery life and a comfortable fit. However, audio performance (music and calls) is a let down. Other brands such as Sennheiser and Audio Technica offer buds that are almost the same price but have significantly better sound quality. If you’re thinking of buying these for listening to music, you probably should be clear, but then are there really any wireless earphones that get a hardcore audiofile approval stamp? It also depends on the music you listen to, and if warm tracks are your brand’s music, they may not sound bad to you. If you are not too passionate about sound quality and want something that is feature rich and affordable, then these might actually work for you. For us, however, since audio is a big part of our testing methodology, it doesn’t score high enough to allow us to make general recommendations.