A member of my team flew into Chennai over the weekend.   For the last three weeks Jayashree had been getting packages from Amazon containing replacements to electronics that had been destroyed by the horrible electrical system here.   That list included replacement power supplies for our Xbox and Wii consoles.   I added one small treat to the list, a pair of Skull Candy Full Metal Jacket headphones.  I am impressed to the point that I have to spend a few minutes raving about how good these headphones feel and sound.

They are an in-ear design and come with three different size gel ear sleeves.  The ear bud is all metal (hence the name Full Metal Jacket).   The sound quality is amazing for head phones.  There are two size of speakers, I chose the larger 11mm over the 9mm.  I have been using the standard issue iPod headphones and they aren’t low quality, but these are far superior.   I started off listening to the Grateful Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and Jerry’s guitar really comes through.  I switched back to the iPod phones and everything sounds a bit more muddled.   This is impressive considering my ears have been surgically repaired and even now don’t work too well.

For the next test I chose Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.   The piece has a strong cello foundation that cause my old phones to crackle at high volume.   The FMJ phones remained crystal clear even max volume.

The SkullCandy website targets the punk rock set and I finished off the test with “Rocky Road to Dublin” by the Dropkick Murphys.   I usually listen to DKM at full volume and the Skull Candy buds lived up to expectation.  Very clear, absolutely no distortion.

Due to permanent tinnitus (ringing ears), I prefer to keep headphones on as much as possible, and these are a great way to go.  Very comfortable and high quality.