The Aviator tucked away in the included carry bag. "The way it was, is not the way it is." - Jamie Oman, Skullcandy Director of Product Developement
Over the course of two days I had conversations with Dan Levine, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer; Pete Kelly, Director of Industrial Design; and Jamie Oman, Director of Product Developement for Skullcandy. I asked very direct questions about their intentions from the outset, and throughout the design and development process with regard to the sound quality goals of the Aviators, and I was pleasantly surprised with the answers. About 2 1/2 years ago, Rick Alden (Skullcandy's founder) decided that Skullcandy needed to be in the game as a serious headphone maker. I think a little context is in order: "in the game" and "serious" is not expressed by these guys in the smooth tones of suited corporate MBA drones. These guys ride boards on snow and surf; they see themselves as just one division of the action-sports army; the one there to provide the tunes. From Skullcandy's SEC filing:
"Our brand symbolizes youth and rebellion, and embodies our motto, "Every revolution needs a soundtrack."When their "serious" talk about "getting in the game" contained phrases like "successfully implement our growth strategy" or "manufacturer selection and qualification program" or "stylizing a previously-commoditized product and capitalizing on the increasing pervasiveness, portability and personalization of music," it felt a lot more like they were saying "I popped a kick-flip to Nollie on the bench, then smooved a 5-0 grind to Caballerial on the concrete, dude" than some soulless accountant-speak. I liked these guys. In the last two years they've double their engineering staff; spent a half-million bucks on R&D gear for labs here in the States and at their facility in China; and have gotten so serious about premium product this statement appears as one of five major growth strategies in their SEC filing:
After a couple of hours on the phone with these guys, I hung-up quite convinced there is a remarkably good possibility we will be hearing better sounding headphones from Skullcandy in the future. Summary"Grow Our Premium Product Offering." - To date, the vast majority of our products have been priced in the $10 to $70 range. With our recently introduced $150 Aviator headphones and $250 Mix Master headphones, we have begun to expand our premium headphone offering and believe we can increase our share of this growing market. By offering premium products, we believe we can further strengthen our brand and broaden our reach to consumers with greater discretionary income. "
The terrifically good looking Skullcandy Roc Nation Aviator ($179) is also the best sounding "lifestyle" headphone I've heard to date ... by a wide margin. Head-to-head with all headphones of its type and price, the Aviator compares well against the established bests-of-breed. Understandably, the Aviator falls a bit short in bass extension when compared to the cans with larger earpieces and tighter seals around the ear; but it bests most in its ability to deliver a wonderfully balanced and cheerful sound.
If you don't want to walk around with a fugly-black-but-maybe-slightly-better-sounding-lump-of-highly-engineered-plastic
on your head, you'll be glad to know I'm giving the Aviators a big thumbs-up
with my left hand ... and throwing up an index finger and pinky up with my right.
Highly, highly recommended.
