Affordable Noise-Canceling Earbuds With a Catch

October 23, 2024

Skullcandy's Indy ANC earbuds are AirPods-like in design, but in features and price, they aren't anywhere close to the standard AirPods. Not only do they offer active noise-canceling technology to better block out sounds around you, but they also have a wireless charging case. For those features, you're looking at AirPods Pro's $249 price, but these Skullcandy Indy ANC earbuds come in at $129 and have been on sale for as low as $99.

These earbuds aren't perfect and do have a few serious annoyances that come with them, but on the whole, they're a terrific value.

Setup and Design

Skullcandy isn't trying to be coy about its AirPods-like design here. And that's fine. The earbud stems' hanging-from-the-ear design are fairly commonplace now and familiar in the personal audio space. The company did diverge from Apple in its use of color, and it's nice to be able to get earbuds in a color besides white.

I used their black Indy ANC earbuds. Beyond the skull logo on each earbud and the case exterior, the look is fairly generic. The skull doesn't bother me, but I do wonder if it may stop people from buying these who otherwise would be good candidates for low-priced noise-canceling earbuds.

The case can be charged via a USB-C cable or wirelessly, when placed on a Qi charger. The case is pocketable, but it likely won't make it into the small fifth jeans pocket that the standard AirPods case can. The earbuds fit snugly inside their case, and overall, the look and function are practical for everyday use.

The earbuds come with rubber wingtips to secure them in your ears. You'll see similar style rubber ear tips on sport earbuds models. This piece is removable, so if you don't like it, you don't need to use it. In addition to the ear tips that come on the earbuds, there are smaller-size wingtips included along with the two sizes of silicone ear tips in the box. Without the wing-like rubber attachments, these would have fallen out of my ears like most silicone earbuds tend to do, so I kept using them. Personally, I liked the fit of the smaller silicone ear tips, but the music sounded much worse than the medium-size ones in my ears.

It's not just the sound leakage and decreased bass sound that occurs if the silicone ear tips don't seal your ears completely, but the active noise canceling is almost useless. After trying the different size tips multiple times, I opted to deal with the slight discomfort of the middle size in favor of their noise canceling and better sound quality.

Features and Specs

Skullcandy's advertised features and specs.

Active noise-canceling technology
Personal sound tuning
Rated 19 hours battery time with ANC on
IP55 water and dust-resistant
Touch controls: Call, track, volume control and more
Built-in Tile finding technology

Performance

As soon as I paired the earbuds and pressed play on a song, Dua Lipa's "Don't Start Now" to be precise, my first reaction was one of shock at how deep and rich the bass sounded. Typically, earbuds can't deliver low frequencies as well as full headphones because the drivers inside are much smaller. The bass on these Indy ANC earbuds is definitely tuned to make an impression out of the box.

The sound is nice and a great reason to pick up a pair of these earbuds. No matter how many extra features or conveniences a pair of earbuds have, they aren't worth buying if they don't sound good. These should do the trick for a lot of people, listening casually.

"Freeze Tag" by Dinner Party can rattle the inside of your head with its low-end rumbling bass in the song's intro. On Leif Vollebekk's "Hot Tears," however, there's not quite enough clarity present to hear the fine, plucky details of the piano or the airy room like other headphones and earbuds can deliver. There is still a crispness throughout the frequencies that make the overall audio quality feel like you're not missing out on much—especially for on-the-go, casual listening. Plus, the tight and booming bass makes up for the earbuds' lack in other areas of sound.

Music definitely sounds best in noise-canceling mode. There's an Ambient Mode to allow for more sound to come into your ears, so even with the silicone tips sealing sound out and creating a passive noise canceling effect, you can still hear your surroundings. I used these earbuds on a bike ride with Ambient Mode, and they were almost unusable with the static sound caused by the wind hitting the exterior microphones.

Included in the Skullcandy app is a way to personalize the sound to your ears. You run through a series of audible tones, and then the app will adjust the sound for each ear. I thought my personalized audio did sound better. Plus, it's interesting to test your ears to see what tones you can and can't hear.

The two areas of annoyance for the Indy ANC earbuds are largely tied together. The first is their lack of ear detection: Audio won't stop playing when they're taken out of your ears. The second is that the touch controls are terrible. They are so bad, in fact, that after three to four days of trying to work with them, I gave up. If there were ear detection, you could pull an earbud out to pause your music, but because it's not there, you're forced to use overly complicated touch controls. Making it worse, the app does not include a way to customize or remove touch controls.

It seems like the initiation with the on-ear media playing controls came from a good place. The option to perform all tasks from your ears is admirable, but they're overly complex and create problems. If you don't execute a pause command perfectly, for example, you could end up skipping the song. Many of the commands overlap, meaning that the sequence and timing matter. With 15 different controls, remembering them all is nearly impossible, and confusing them is a guarantee.

On top of everything else with the touch controls, the last straw for me was that the instructions are not explicitly clear. The instructions only use images—not text—to describe how to perform the controls.

Battery life is rated for five hours with ANC on, but in my use, I found that to be a generous number. With the volume around 50 percent, I consistently found its battery life to be shorter on a single charge. Recharging the earbuds in the case was speedy but still an area of possible concern for the long term.

Should You Buy the Skullcandy Indy ANC Earbuds?

While the touch controls are infuriating, I do think these earbuds are still a great value. These are not the only ANC earbuds at their price point worth considering on the market, but they should get a look. They provide plenty of features, including tracking with Tile technology. But most importantly, they sound good for a reasonable price. I like having a charging case that can be set down on a wireless charger to top it off when needed. I also like having active noise canceling as an option if I need help blocking out noisy environments.

As long as your expectations recognize these earbuds still have some flaws, I think you'll be happy with Skullcandy's Indy ANC earbuds.

Buy at Amazon and Skullcandy.

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