Skullcandy Heavy Medal Headphones

After realising that my beloved AiAiAis grumbled and complained over Bus rides I knew I would have to replace them at some point.

My many a year want where a pair by Shure and preferably the SE535s. However that was an expense i could not stretch too and likely never will and both Littlewoods and very, very curiously ONLY stock headphones that have a really bad reputation for failing inside a year and are NOT authorised dealers of most of the crap they sell you anyway... so a recipe for disaster and an invite to be ripped off, ignored and then taken to court for a higher amount than the RRP for a refurbished product.

I digress.

I had long visited TK Maxx and browsed there headphones and recently passed up a very nice pair of Philips O'Neills that were £17.50 from £90 odd! Missing bits and cable.

I had also previously seen Skullcandy Full Metal Jackets and many seem to use Skullcandys and had passed up my chance. I had checked them out on Amazon's reviewers, have to be careful with reviewers on headphones, and noticed that the Heavy Medal was the most premium headphones.

A few days back, and just after ordering a Fiio Portable Amplifier to be posted NEXT, I walked into TK Maxx and see a pair of Full Metal Jackets only when I was looking down the side of the hanging rail they were suspended from the box behind stated ... HEAVY MEDAL?! AS the Full Metal Jackets are normally £29.99 I thought these would be £34.99 or even £39.99 and as I had just spent £50 I started to curse not waiting on the other order.

I checked to see if there were any other pairs of these with the option of hiding one at the back of the shelf somewhere, lol very sad, when I suddenly noticed that they were priced up at £19.99?!

I then spotted they have a pair of tips looking like Comply Memory Foams and that was it, I was holding them tight and hobbling towards the queue.

They are made of metal and are bizarrely light. Carry tin is metal too as are the other parts that appear metal. The tips are better than I thought they would be, a little fiddly but less so than the yellow tips that came with the AiAiAis. I am not sure what size the foam tips are and it does not state this, annoyingly as I still do not know which size to order which I will need to do in a couple of weeks.

The tips do not block out all sound and I know this due to the gaps between tracks and I will get into that with the next post!

They sound great and ever so slightly better that the AiAiAis and in all honesty I have not tried the silicone nor the triple flange tips yet but will tomorrow.

A local store had a pair of Atomic Floyd MiniDarts and now have Atomic Floyd Superdarts which I would have bought in a couple of weeks. So saved myself a whole heap of cash on these, unless they fail within two weeks of course, lol.

I hope not as I really do feel nothing at all when they are inserted in the ear. I know not that they are there and only the music lets me know they are still in place.

Also my left ear has pressure trouble and using the silicone tips of any kind is damned annoying as I have to push and pull them around in y left ear to stop the ear from popping and losing 50% or more of my hearing on that side. I do not have this with the right side which is slightly down on hearing... ohhh long story. No pressure troubles with these tips which are exactly what I had hoped and more.

These are pretty decent headphones before you go into ORBIT on pricing and they have an oversized driver which is around 13.5mm and on the pricier headphones I have seen 9mm to 11mm so this was a surprise.

Nice and will suit me well in case of any 6 hour coach journeys I might have to take in 2013!

Along with the Headphone Amplifier these two seemed to get better as time went on while I was out and about listening to them. Yes I have read about this umm warming up thing people refer to but I do not know which models of headphone it applies to, like only expensive cutting edge models, or whether or not it is just anal talk but audiophiles that are anything but and a PLACEBO effect going on and really its just your ears getting used to the new sounds and frequencies.

Well something was definitely going on even if I cannot say with any certainty what it was!

Hmm only does make me wonder what the Shures and Westones would sound like though?! LOL.