When it comes to headphones with a youthful design and strong sound, users will rank Beats by Dre at number 1, and Skullcandy at number 2 will be the second. Like RHA, Skullcandy, although not established for a long time, has quickly gained a foothold in the market, ‘attracting’ a loyal fan base including young people, lovers of skateboarding culture, and fashion enthusiasts.
In this article in the ‘Audio History’ series, we will learn about the most important milestones with the Skullcandy sound company from the US.
Skullcandy’s history dates back to 2003 with its founder, Rick Alden. One day he went skiing and sat in a pull-up chair (a chair with a pulley cord to carry skiers to the top of the mountain); he had to pull out his headphones to answer a phone call from a friend. Now an idea popped into his head: why didn’t he create headphones that could both be used to listen to music and quickly switch to call mode; moreover, it has a bold design to match his Hip Hop outfit – and that’s how Skullcandy was born. Its headquarters are in Park City, Utah, USA.
The company’s first product, called Skullcandy Portable Link, was introduced at CES, Las Vegas – a system that connects headphones and calls, helps users both listen to music on the DAP and receive calls on the phone. The company still holds the copyright of this system to this day.
Later, the company began to produce headphones and achieved certain success. In December 2008, Fortune magazine named Skullcandy “the maker of the world’s most fashionable headphones.” By 2011, the company had a large capital and decided to buy the company as a gaming headset Astro Gaming.
In January 2011, Incipio, a manufacturer of various accessories such as phone cases and portable speakers, announced that it wanted to buy Skullcandy for $ 177 million. Still, this deal did not end because of disagreements. After various offers, Skullcandy was purchased by Mill Road Capital for $196 million and later became a private company. By 2015, Skullcandy’s value reached $ 266 million.
In the early days, Skullcandy was famous for its compact In-ear headphones with built-in microphones (true to the founder’s original intention), such as Skullcandy 50/50, Skullcandy Titan. To keep up with the general trend of the market, the company has switched to producing many pairs of wired headphones, with the first TWS product called Push, then Indy and Sesh.
Skullcandy’s most advanced technologies are in over-ear wireless products such as Venue or Crusher ANC, including active noise cancellation, sound adjustment with a pull knob, vibration feedback according to sound, and not to mention the Tile search chip.
To talk about Skullcandy’s sound quality, look at the company’s target audience, and we will understand: Hip Hop people, people who like adventure games. These young people are passionate about fashion. This audience will love a vibrant sound, V-shape or heavy emphasis on the bass range to make the songs look like they’re being played on the dance floor. The company’s first-generation products have “overdone” this sound quality, so it lacks balance; over time, it has also tweaked it to keep it vibrant and easy to listen to with more genres than before.
Talking about the future, Skullcandy will continue to thrive when we realize 2 points:
The company knows how to apply new technologies and listen to users’ opinions to continuously create new products. As mentioned above, the new generation headphones of the company are not only modern but have much-improved sound quality compared to before.
– Its biggest direct competitor, Beats by Dre, acquired by “big man” Apple, has slowed down its development path. It has been a long time since Beats has launched a new product; it seems that Apple has ‘grasped’ to control Beats, but this company is no longer free to develop!
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