Skullcandy Venue review: Noise out, music in

There are buttons on both sides. On the left there is power and the awareness mode buttons, along with an LED strip that shows the battery status. On the right, there are volume buttons flanking a play/pause button. You can use the volume buttons to switch songs and the play buttons to activate Siri or Google assistant, depending on the platform you are on.

The noise cancelling is pretty decent. And as I do often these days, I switched it on to doze off during a really early morning flight. It did keep out most of the engine drone, as well as the drone of my fellow passenger who was getting some “sound sleep”.

Also read: Sennheiser CX 6.00 BT review: In-ear bliss

When I woke up an hour later and decided to switch on some remastered Ali Farka Touré, the Venue ended up being a pleasant surprise. It was a full bodied, soulful kind of sound reproduction which I hadn’t really expected. Mind you, this is the first Skullcandy I am reviewing, at least in a long while. The guitar‎, cabasa‎ and ‎njarka all had a space of their own and clarity, not to speak about the depth. The music was the type that made you sleep again, not from tiredness, but from seeking a higher a ground. I recommend these headphones for those who like to listing to live music, this seems perfect for the same.

There are buttons on both sides.

The Skullcandy Venue lets you take calls too, like all Bluetooth devices these days. However, there the spacial effect of the headphone has a slightly negative effect and the voice on the other side is almost lost in the vastness of this audio field. It feels as if you are speaking to someone in the corner of a very large room. Also, during the calls, the ambient noise from the traffic, though muted, kept whirring around my ears. So you might want to use these headphones for calls when the ambient noise is not all that active.

Skullcandy Venue price in India: Rs 18,999