Skullcandy Hesh 3 wireless headphones review

The Skullcandy Hesh 3 is the successor to the Hesh 2 and has had a complete makeover. The makeover has resulted in an optimal wireless listening experience.

 

The Skullcandy Hesh 3 has reinvigorated the wireless over-ear headphone segment, providing headphones that are good on bass and easy on the pocket.

 

Design

The design of the Hesh 3 is sleek and lightweight. Due to the nature of the design of the Hesh 3, the headphones sit with a low profile on your head.

The Hesh 3 headphones are designed for easy storage as they fold up.

You can easily pack them into any backpack or storage facility.

Just by looking at the box, you can tell that the headphones are slimmer than usual.

Now the first thing that you will notice if you are a skull candy product user, is that the look and feel of these headphones are heavily influenced by Skullcandy’s crush and wireless product range.

When compared to past editions of Hesh headphones this is a new feature. The past editions of Hesh headphones have always been a bit raised and stuck out somewhat.

You can see that they were trying to disassociate with the past and made this design that much more sleek and slim.

 

 

Ear Cups/Cushions

The ear cups are something quite interesting. Firstly, they are made of memory foam on the inside, and then covered in faux leather on the outside.

But of significant interest was the fact that they looked like they are a combination of inspiration from the crusher wireless and 2.

Probably one thing that is disappointing is that the amount of protection provided by the cushion is not as sufficient as I would have liked.

For instance, the Crusher wireless had much more earpad cushioning.

Having said that, however, I think that it will do well for about 3 straight hours of listening, after which it is advised that you remove the ear pads and give yourself a break.

The ear cups do swivel inwards for ease of storage. I like this feature as the headphones can be placed with the smallest of luggage and will not be a burden when you are traveling.

 

Sound Quality

Skullcandy’s signature sound is delivered through 40mm drivers. The sound delivered is crystal clear and gives life to a variety of music genres.

The one thing that skull candy has done, which as well is not in line with past convention is to make the sound profile appeal to as many people as possible.

For those of you that know Skullcandy, you will know that skull candy pride themselves in making headphones with a lot of bass.

Skullcandy Hesh 3 wireless

This time around though they have decided to make a full switch and optimized the mids and treble.

I think I can understand the idea behind this, and the idea is that sometimes when a set of headphones is optimized for base it can drown out a lot of the other instruments and thus you do not get the full effect of a song, unless the song is thumpy (say hip hop or EDM music.)

I noticed this exact effect whenever I would play a jazzy track, on say, the beats wireless 3 headphones.

This should in no way be taken to mean that SkullCandy have forgotten all about the bass.

Far from it, the headphones still provide a very solid thump, but this time, it’s not just thump that matters.

I must say, I was taken aback by this as I never expected that a set of SkullCandy headphones would have such solid treble.

This level of mid range performance I would ordinarily associate with a brand like Sennheiser or even Bowers and Wilkins.

With those 2 you know that you are getting quality audio at the mid range.

I take my hat off to Skull candy for being able to make sure that the bass is still top-notch, but does not make songs muddy.

I always knew that this is the compromise that I have to make with very bass focused headphones.

I would love the thump, but understand that on some level my mids would be drowned out by the base, and the instruments would sound thick and even bloated.

But the makers at skull candy delivered a nice balanced set of headphones which I really appreciate.

I suppose the debate rages on about whether Skullcandy ever really made headphones for the audiophile. My belief is that audiophiles would actually have something to discuss here.

These are a game changer for Skull candy, and they have really done well to appeal to a broad demographic of listeners.

It is not an easy transition to make, to go from being a bass first headphone maker,and then try to optimize the other audio ranges, but I think that skull candy has done a good job.

And considering the price range I think these are an excellent set of headphones.

The Skullcandy Hesh 3 is a closed back set of cans and this means that the sound is trapped inside and does not impact anyone around you.

The level of separation is awesome, there is ample space when listening to music.

You can literally start to distinguish various types of instruments, and you can tell where specific sounds are coming from.

Fortunately, the sound leakage was zero. Usually you will get closed back headphones that do leak some sound, but there was no leakage whatsoever which I found incredible.

 

 

Controls

Incoming calls can be answered by using the buttons on the ear cup to answer. The buttons on the earcup allow you to also change tracks and adjust the volume without having to pull out your phone.

The Hesh 3 comes with voice prompts that tell you when your device is paired and when your device is on low battery.

Looking at the controls, you will notice that most of the action is taking place on the right ear-cup.

Included in the right ear cup are the headphone jack, the micro USB slot, the volume up and volume down functions, the multi function button that allows you to answer calls and to play and pause music.

So, you have all the basic functionality that you would find in Skullcandy’s product range.

 

Skullcandy hesh 3

Battery

The Skullcandy Hesh 3 comes with 22 hours of battery life. By plugging the backup aux cable, you can also access wired listening.

In keeping up with the latest in technology for headphones, Skullcandy Hesh 3 provides some decent level of battery power. The fast charging capability here is unlike anything I have ever seen before.

The other amazing feature of these headphones is that they come with some incredible fast charging capabilities. 3 hours is about the most that I have ever heard of.

I mean Bose and Sony do not give you that much and those headphones can retail at double the cost of a Skullcandy. 4 hours for 10 minutes of charging is just incredible.

listening time is approximately 22 hours uninterrupted. Of course, If you are listening to these at high volumes and connected them to like a million devices then they will not go the full 22 hours.

What’s in the box ?

Skullcandy Hesh 3

The Hesh 3 headphones come in a standard size box. When you look inside the box you find the following.

Micro USB charger, cable and headphones.

One thing you will notice As soon as you take these out of the box, I recognized that they are extremely light.

 

 

Cable

The included aux cable also allows you to enjoy entertainment on non-bluetooth devices, like for instance an in flight entertainment system in an airplane.

I do like the fact that they decided to include a cable with the headphones. Many manufacturers are cutting costs by not including a cable.

But not only did they include a cable they included a whole 3m.

I like cables as they come in handy when I no longer wish to make use of Bluetooth.

Sometimes the use of Bluetooth can heat up the headphones and the cable in this instance can come in handy.

 

 

Build Quality

One of the major concerns I had is how long will the headphones last. If you look at the outside of the cans you will notice that they are almost completely made of plastic.

I did not do the stretch test all the way because you could tell that these have the potential to break with some harsh treatment.

You may have these lasting a year at maximum in my opinion. But of course, all of this depends on how you treat your cans.

 

 

Headband

Inside headband slider though is made of metal, which is a good thing as it ensures that the headband is not fragile.

Fortunately there are a variety of colors in the Hesh 3 range.

Skull candy designed these cans in black, red and white. As far as aesthetics are concerned, the only other feature of the headphones, is that they have the skull candy logo on the headband and a slight bit of gloss.

The one thing that you will notice about the headband is that there is some padding underneath the top of the headband to protect the head against the plastic surface.

I do think that they were a little skimpy on the padding, and could have put a little more.

I suppose that this was done to cut costs. However, these headphones can get a pass on little headband padding because they are so light that they are unlikely to cause any severe pressure on the top of your head.

 

 

Carry Case

For the life of me I cannot figure out why Skull candy decided that they were not going to include so much as even a pouch given they were not going to include a travel case for the Hesh 3.

Now your headphones have that much more opportunity to get damage.

Given how light these headphones are, you would not want to bump them against anything because there is a very high risk that they will break or at the very least get damaged.

As far as the casing goes I reckon that it is worth your while to simply get a new case for these which will cost you around $15.

I think they could have gotten away with pricing these bad boys at $15 dollars more and provided a nice case. In fact, it would have enhanced the appeal.

But I guess you can’t get perfect.

 

Skullcandy Hesh 3

 

Noise Cancellation

As far as noise cancellation is concerned, these cans are not the active noise canceling headphones that people are used to.

There is a pretty good amount of noise isolation though, meaning that most sound is muffled out and some lower frequency sounds can be dramatically reduced if not completely eradicated.

But you will not get the full noise canceling capability that active noise canceling headphones come with.

If you are interested in a solid set of noise canceling headphones then see the following link

 

 

The Bottom Line

Now at sub $150 for these headphones, I think skull candy is pricing very aggressively.

I think that this price range is optimal as once you start getting close to the $200 mark you begin to compete with some well-established players and it gets very hard to stand out from the crowd.

Sub $150 price range makes it that the average person can afford the cans and get good output.

Also, it brings into play the people who would shop for Sony or Bose and makes them consider whether the premium is worth it.

Also, this price range is appropriate, as for under $200 you can get a solid pair of noise canceling headphones from the likes of JBL and Sennheiser.

So, you do not want to be pricing your cans close to $200.

If you are a long-time skull candy fan you will notice that skull candy has upped their game when it comes to these headphones.

Skull candy initially promoted themselves as a hip funky headphone brand and were known for an array of colors and nice bass.

Now they have cleaned up the look and are more professional and have really worked on the sound, which shows maturity on the part of the company.

For those of you that are not familiar with skull candy they will make sure that you are extremely impressed with their latest addition to the world of headphones.

The Skull candy Hesh 3 are a marvelous set of headphones and I would highly recommend them.

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