Skullcandy Rail ANC in-Ear Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds, 38 Hr Battery, Microphone, Works with iPhone Android and Bluetooth Devices – True Black

Edit: added more at the end

If you had an allergic reaction to Samsung Buds 2 or their other earbuds, you’ll react to these as well. I wore the Rail ANC for less than one afternoon and by dinner my ears were already reacting with liquid discharge. This morning at 4am I had one ear almost totally crusted over and still leaking while the other was leaking but less crusted. I’ve had this reaction before and I suspect it’s the material used for the inserts. Also, the little logo they put on them didn’t help either. Anything that causes friction in the ear canal is a stupid idea. I got these for a trip I’m taking on a plane across country and I’m kinda screwed now because I can’t return them in time to get something else. My old wired headphones from when I bought my Samsung pgone don’t react, so I took those ear inserts and luckily they fit, so I through them on. Once my ears stop reacting and chill out, I’ll see if that fixes the issue in time for my trip.

As far as function goes, the headphones are okay at best. They can get plenty loud to the point that ANC or their Stay Aware pass through mode mean nothing. It’s nice to know I can listen at lower volumes like I prefer and still have ambient noise be mostly audible or have anc keep things subdued. But subdued is the best they give and mostly audible ambient noise is about as much as you can expect. These aren’t stellar at either. Doable, but not something I’d laude about.

They sound pretty good for what they are. Not sure if I’d say they’re $100 headphone quality or value, allergies aside, but they don’t sound awful by any means. Music was clear and had some rumble. I used the sound personalization and it was easy enough to get decent sound. There a bass boost, general music and podcast sound setting with a customizable equalizer in the app as well.

The buttons on the side are touch activated and finicky. I tend to tap fast and expect fast responses, but these prefer a more methodical pace. The sweetspot for where to touch is also funky, but I started getting it after a few hours. Also, the audio queues are clear enough, but an option to remove them would make things feel faster. Also, if they’re not in my ear, I wish touch capacity stopped. Plenty of time I took one out and accidentally started changing tracks, changing volume and activating pairing mode.

I remapped all the touch responses and even changed what ear did what. One tap on either paused, double tap on left was volume down, on right it’s volume up. Three taps left was previous track and same on the right was skip ahead. Long press in either toggles ANC on/off and pass through audio. I appreciate customization like that.

For what stands out as good, I’d say it’s the voice prompts. Much quicker to respond than on my phone or watch and that’s kinda sad because it’s the feature I’ll probably never use and cared rhe least about, but seemed so much better than my phones inbuilt assistant that Samsung spent so much time, effort and money on to develop (rip bixby). If you like using voice commands, that’s gonna go great, although the “take photo” command doesn’t work with my Samsung’s camera app. Again, not something I was after anyways.

One of my favorite features was the built-in tile function for finding them if I lose one or both. The tile app isn’t super intuitive, but I mostly figured it out and stumbled my way into it connecting both buds. It creates a tone I can hear when the room in my apartment is silent and has a directional sensor to let me know if I’m getting hotter or colder. Granted, it’s not terribly responsive, sensitive or consistent, but if I moved slowly through a room, I bet between the proximity sensor and sound I’d probably find one if I lost one. It’s a nice feature to have where I’d otherwise be totally screwed, so I’ll take a win where I can with these.

I got these on pre-order. When they were scheduled to release after 2 weeks, they ended up coming 10 days earlier or less. It seems weird i had to pre-order when people said they were already at Walmart for a couple weeks, but whatever.

I’ll update after my ears recover and try them using the non-reactive ear inserts from my old wired heaphones and see if they don’t react again. I was furious about my Galaxy Buds 2 causing this reaction, but my wired stuff and my LG Tone Platinums never caused an issue. If it weren’t summer and the LG Tone Platinums weren’t makeing my neck hot, I might never have bothered looking at this style Bluetooth buds again. But it’s a trip to a Nevada training center after the hottest july month on record in human history with averages around 110 in the area I’ll be. I thought I’d take a chance on mild comfort. I’m hoping I didn’t waste my money now that almost out of time.

EDIT: It’s been a few days so I’ll add more input. Battery is pretty good, but it’s not enough to bump a star.

The app Skullcandy IQ is awful. It’s what controls your key presses. The problem is the app is always on, but loses connection and resets all your programmed key presses. I end up having to reset them every day when they eventually connect poorly. The app logo constantly in my phones notification bar isn’t necessary or tell me any input about my headphones. If it at least told me battery levels or connection status, maybe I wouldn’t be so annoyed, but this just ISN’T ready for prime time.

Also, the ear inserts are what caused the allergic reaction. They jerryrigged replacements I found by chance from a totally different set of wired buds from an old phone work well enough, but I shouldn’t have to find my own replacements. At least having an option for different inserts that are non-reactive would be beneficial like memory foam or whatever. Again, Samsung Buds 2 had this EXACT issue and replacing inserts with an aftermarket set was the only solution. For a list of symptoms, it’s pretty unmistakable: liquid discharge, discolored mucousal discharge in ear, weeping ear, flaking and scaly skim that seems to build up and shed, pain itching, inflammation, basically a large skin irritation in your ear canal that, if unmanaged, becomes a severe ear infection. Samsung got sued for it and has been paying out for their affected customers. Skullcandy is headed the same way with these unless they have a hypoallergenic replacement in the wing.

If the connectivity issue wasn’t so bad and not saving my preset remapped button setting wasn’t so annoying, perhaps I would add a star or two, but this isn’t ready for release and I’m probably returning after giving another day or two. Really sucks I’m screwed out of my trip for headphones, but I’m not gonna struggle with a new set of buds I paid good money for. I’ll just go back to wired at this point.

Good sound, sleek/sexy look, and a decent price point. I was on the fence concerning wireless earbuds but no regrets after receiving these.

The reviews are accurate though with what they say about noise cancellation however looking at it with objective logic there just isn’t enough mass to achieve 100% noise reduction. It is more of a reduction than a cancelation. I could be wrong I’m not an audiophile or anything of the sort. If there are buds that do produce an absolute noise deadening; I would certainly like to know about it.