Skullcandy Method 360 reviewed: almost but not quite

At a little under $200, the Skullcandy Method 360 doesn’t need Tony Hawk to advertise its gear. It has Bose sound and a solid price tag.

There’s clearly no shortage of truly wireless earphone offerings, but sometimes you just need a little more of a “gimme” to break through. For Skullcandy, that appears to have come with the double hit combo of price and celebrity star power.

Glance at the advertising for its Method 360 noise cancelling earbuds, and you’ll quickly see why: priced at $190 in Australia and featuring the Tony Hawk on its ads, Skullcandy is doing a little more than merely releasing a new model of earbuds. It’s talking it up and dangling a carrot in front of buyers.

But star power isn’t the big draw you might think it is for these buds. The price is the true carrot, and paired with a collaborative effort from Bose, the Method 360 are an intriguing package with a few kinks in need of ironing out.

Design and features

One of the more curiously designed pair of earphones we’ve seen in recent years, the Method 360 earphones themselves feel like they take a page out of something we’ve seen from Bose, while the case, well, that’s something we’ve never seen before.

Truth be told, in reviewing headphones for nearly 20 years, this reviewer has never seen a case quite like this. It’s big. One could say too big. It’s like a tube that holds earphones with a keyring out the back, and frankly, it’s just a little crazy.

You can’t pocket this pair, that’s for sure, but at least it’ll never go missing. Not unintentionally, anyway.

Fortunately, the earphones are comparatively compact, with their slim design reminding us of the original Bose QC Buds, but with a Skullcandy logo on the front. There’s a tip and an ear gel stabiliser, and the whole thing just has a Bose vibe to it.

Given Bose has played a part in engineering the sound, that should probably come as no surprise, but the feature set of the buds isn’t bad, either.

Four mics are included in the buds with a 12mm driver on each ear, and an app that gives you equaliser control and multipoint support. The earphones also feature IPX4 water resistance, which is akin to sweat resistance and a little bit of rain (but not a deluge).

There’s also up to 32 hours of battery life with noise cancellation switched on, offering nine hours in the earbuds and a remainder of 23 in the battery case, providing a little over two charges. Turn the noise cancellation off, and the life is boosted to 40 hours in total with 11 hours of earbud usage.

We’re not sure why you’d use a pair of noise cancelling earbuds without noise cancellation, but it’s an option if you need a little more battery life.

In-use

Take the earphones out of the rather large case, and you’ll find a few options for the tips and ear-gel to stabilise the earbuds in the box. Once you find the right combination, throw the earphones in place (your ears) and you should find they fit comfortably, holding in place as you move your head. Shake your head from side-to-side as we did, and they hold.

Controlling the Method 360 is a series of button taps, but fortunately there’s also an app. Technically, Skullcandy has two, and it really should do away with the older “Skullcandy” app and replace it with the newer “Skull IQ” app, which is the only one that actually works.

Inside the second of the two, you’ll find noise cancellation controls and seeings, equaliser, and even a way to take photos with your buds. It’s a little more interesting than a regular pair of earbuds, and you can even change your controls to suit.

Performance

The most useful aspect of any earphones is clearly how they sound, and as usual, we’re doing a test with the Pickr Sound Test, which you can listen to for yourself.

That starts with electronic, where we’re greeted with decent balance amidst some meaty lows from Tycho and Daft Punk. The lows are decent though at times can feel a touch shallow, but there’s a balance that’s difficult to deny, and the same is true with other genres.

The pop of Carly Rae Jepsen delivers a nice punch, Marvin Gaye’s soul sounds smooth, and even the snap from Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” hits nicely. The guttural bass we look for in FKA Twigs’ “Two Weeks” is present, with a nice reflex that isn’t overkill.

It’s a good overall sound, a note we literally scrawled in for the Method 360’s performance in rock, delivering good clarity and achieving the balance we’ve come to expect from anything with the name “Bose” attached to it. These earbuds definitely arrive with Bose on-board, as the company’s sound expertise is used.

Noise cancellation

It’s not just solid Bose-tweaked balanced sound you’re getting with the pair, but decent noise cancellation, as well.

You’ll be able to cancel out the regular repeatable sounds, making them ideal for trains and aircraft, though walking by road will see some traffic noise leak in.

Despite the “Bose” name attached to sound, it’s not noise cancellation by Bose, but rather just the sound and balance. That’s not to say the ANC is bad here — it’s not — but you’d be mistaken for thinking the Skullcandy Method 360 are Bose earphones. They’re not, but they’re also not terrible value, either.

Battery

One area that doesn’t fare too badly is the battery life, which delivers a good day of life without the charging battery case. Given the size of it, that’s probably a good thing.

But the fact that you can get 8 or 9 hours without much trouble before reaching for the near-energy drink-sized can of storage is excellent, and the 32 hours total isn’t a bad effort, either. The best noise cancelling earphones in the world typically get the same result, and these don’t cost anywhere near as much.

Value

The price is right, too, hitting a sweet spot so few earphone makers achieve.

At $190 in Australia, the Skullcandy Method 360 offer a solid amount of balanced sound and great battery life for an almost impossible alluring price.

What needs work?

But that case. Yeesh, Skullcandy: that case. How do we not talk about that case?

Not only is the case monstrously big for a pair of earphones, but it’s unwieldy. The keyring loop helps a little — you can quickly attach it to a carabiner or a bag strap, but even so. Earphone cases are supposed to be getting smaller, not bigger. This goes the total opposite way.

That’s not the only issue, either. Stuffing the earphones into the case is a hassle, and only helped by the fact that Skullcandy has provided magnets. The magnetic attraction helps you guide the earphones in, but if you’re anything like us, you’ll fiddle about trying to make them sit comfortably for way too long.

Sufficed to say, these aren’t easy to store in the slightest.

When you do wear them, Skullcandy has one other problem that really bugs us: the on-device assistant is really loud, almost to the point where it can feel like she’s shouting at you.

Turn the device on. Pair the device. Have it connect to your phone or tablet. With every action comes a loud reaction from the Skullcandy Method 360, and one that can’t be controlled by the volume on your actual device.

Skullcandy has made the on-device voice so loud that she may as well be screaming just to get you to listen. It can actually end up hurting your ears slightly, and unless you’ve lost your hearing, you’ll wonder what exactly the company was thinking, and whether the youth market Skullcandy is advertising to has already lost its hearing to hear this as being quieter. It’s frustratingly loud.

What we love

What we love about the Skullcandy Method is that they are technically a less expensive variation on a theme.

Similar to how Motorola had Bose’s help on its Buds+, Skullcandy too has licensed Bose’s expertise in a category the Bose practically nails production generation after product generation.

That’s a smart move: Skullcandy’s headphone efforts have never been incredible, but this just ups the results in sound considerably.

And the price is right: at just under $200, the Method 360 are a worthy choice, provided you can deal with that comically ridiculous case and the other issues.

Skullcandy Method 360 vs the competition

The price makes the Method 360 worth thinking about largely because of what you’re getting.

The Motorola equivalent in the Moto Buds+? They’re around $250 in Australia. The Bose version of the same in the recently remade Quiet Comfort Earbuds? They’re around $290 locally, and come with better noise cancellation to boot.

But if you don’t need Bose’s level of ANC, Skullcandy is sneaking on by at $100 less than the Bose equivalent, and your only penance is dealing with that insanely large case and slightly less performance in the noise cancellation.

There isn’t a tremendous amount of competition, either.

Look around and you might be able to find the Beats Studio Buds for that price, or even a generation of Sony’s in-ear ANC buds, either the WF-C700N, C710N, or if you can still find them, the LinkBuds S. CMF also offers some options under $200, but there isn’t a tremendous amount with Bose’s level of sound and noise cancellation for the price.

They’re almost in a league of their own. They’re almost great value. Almost but not quite.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

That case is still a problem, though. It might seem like we’re harping on about Skullcandy’s sizeable storage, but it is genuinely big.

In an era where there’s seemingly no end to truly wireless earphones of all shapes and sizes, most of them pay attention to a size made for hands and pants. These don’t. You simply can’t store the Skullcandy Method 360 in your pocket, and they’re not designed for it, either. The focus is on bags plain and simple, and it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

It’s a real shame when you bundle it all together, because ignoring the occasional software kink or loudness issue with the built-in assistant, the case size holds the Method 360 ANC back. There’s just no reason it should be this large. It’s practically unheard of.

The only way these buds make sense is if you’re worried at all about losing the earbuds in any way shape or form. But the ridonkulous case size is the one glaring issue that’s impossible to get over. If you can live with your buds attached to your bag and only attached that way, you’ll be fine with the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC.

And if you want to pocket your buds easily, pick just about any other pair. Everyone else got the memo on size and portability, even if Skullcandy didn’t.