As regular readers might be aware, right now we of The 'Pit prefer our headphones of the 'round the neck' variety. Past good 'uns include these from Motorola and these from Sennheiser. Today we give Skullcandy a shot at hugging the back of our delicious and neatly shaved necks, as we review the Method Wireless Headphones.
Skullcandy are primarily marketing these as sports headphones, aided by the word SPORT they have seen fit to print on the box. Although they do work very well as sports headphones, and the guy in this picture...
...seems to be enjoying wearing them, we found that the Skullcandy Method Wireless Headphones work very well in any kind of 'need music now' situation. Well, they do if you have a thin neck.
The first thing you'll notice about the Skullcandy Method Wireless Headphones when you have them in your hands is how flexible the neckband is. This is a good thing, and clearly all the clever bits of tech, like the battery, controls, and Bluetooth radio, are housed in the firmer tips of the band. Because of this, they feel largely indestructible, and we discovered they can be bent and twisted and pulled around before you fit them to your neck.
Next, you'll notice the earbud wires. They emerge from those same tips, which makes sense, and are long enough to comfortably reach up to your ears. However, the band features a groove into which the wires can slot, either to reduce the amount of slack (something important, we imagine, doing sport), and to tidy the headphones up, essentially hiding the wires. This we also like.
The earbuds are of the in-ear style, which, once more, is necessary for sport-doing, and also for blocking out as much outside noise as possible. The actual silicon tips are brightly coloured, which is cool, but not very comfortable, which was not. You do get an extra size included, but we found that having them in for long periods (over an hour) was a bit of a pain. This is something entirely personal, though - you might think they fit like a dream.
With them around your neck you'll also notice something else: The Skullcandy Method Wireless Headphones seem to have been designed to fit only children. Here we're being overly harsh, but the neckband, which isn't adjustable despite being very flexible, is by far the smallest and tightest of any 'round the neck' headphones we've ever reviewed. Again, this is a personal issue, but all of us who tried it (blokes, mid-thirties) found it to be far too tight. It didn't crush anyone's spine, but it did feel uncomfortably snug for those sensitive to that kind of sensation.
It was strange, because everything else about the Skullcandy Method Wireless Headphones seems pretty much spot-on in terms of design. They go some way to improving the situation in the sound quality department. Remember, these are sub-£40 'phones (at time of writing), so we weren't expecting too much. However, while not the bass-heaviest of headphones, they do perform very well, with clean and crisp highs and resoundingly deep lows. They are also quite loud, so you can up the volume in noisy situations without too much distortion creeping in.
So, although we might think they are way to small for grown men to wear comfortably, the quality of sound, and that pretty handy wire neatening system, go a long way to make the Skullcandy Method Wireless Headphones very desirable, whether you're a sport freak or sitting-down all day freak.
£39.99
Available from www.amazon.co.uk