[Opinions] The majority of teens and Skullcandy?

I think marketing always wins over quality when you're talking about the average consumer.

Most teenagers find them stylish and cool, they usually don't care about sound when they think they're lookin hot.

As a former teenager, there's no way in hell I would have worn Skullcandy. They're deliberately trendy, marketed as such, and I hated that as much at 16 as I do at 36.

The coolest stuff is always something of high quality that's gone out of fashion but hasn't been "rediscovered" yet. Either that or something unconventional coming from an obscure/unknown source.

If a bunch of suits are sitting around a table telling each other to "think outside the box," and commissioning marketing studies, that's uncool. That is, however, a great way to come up with a new washing machine.

I think they look crap as well, and they sound crap too...
Marketing wins though, which I why a lot of teens buy and wear them.

I will admit, a year or two ago when I first saw Skullcandy headphones I thought I had stumbled upon good headphones that I could trust... Well, that all went down the drain when I bought a pair of them. They were perhaps the worst built headphones I'd ever had. I give them credit for lasting as long as they did. And the sound quality, my god, I could probably attribute their crappy SQ to why my hearing is so bad (might explain why I got used to them after awhile...)

Anyway, I'll stop ranting about my bad experience. I am a current teen (19), and as I continue to learn and develop my outlook on life, I have learned that the best way to maximize your investment is to make sure you're getting the best product for your money. If somebody is going to spend 30 dollars on headphones, why not hold up, save your money for a couple of days, and do some research. Instead of spending 30 on some Skullcandies, why not buy the Koss Portapro, which is a time tested design that has kept budget audiophiles happy for a long time?

Taikero said it well: good marketing wins out. My 16-year-old daughter loves SkullCandy because they are "cool." The fact that they are junk, and she has already had to replace a pair out of her own pocket money, seems to leave her unconcerned. I gave up trying to get her to really listen to good cans [in part when I realized that, economically, she was doing me a favor and I was just using up valuable time with my music]. And this Christmas, we gave a set to her boyfriend. What the heck, easy to please.

yup my friend finds them cool and stylish, soundwise, its horrific

I certainly agree with that, however more than that the thing which always drove my purchasing decisions on things as a teen and now was performance for the dollar. I always have had a habit of looking in to things meticulously to see whether the features and performance were the best I could get for the dollar, and I wouldn't cheap out if something a little more expensive could serve me better. As a result I tend to wander away from a lot of what's popular, I've never owned an iPod for instance, I've always found alternatives that I felt were better.

Grado comes to mind when I read this!

On a related note, the second I got my Image X10's, the Skullcandy INK'D buds got to the bottom of my closet. From then on, it was almost as if I felt disrespectful to the music industry for wearing such cheap buds.

I think a portion of my home PC is a perfect example of this. I'm a huge fan of nVidia, but when I was putting together a new system last year I came across ATI's (then new) HD 4870, and at that time it had a much better price/performance ratio than any of nVidia's similarly priced products.

Things have changed a bit in the last few months in both directions (and I'm not advocating anyone buy a specific product here. That's for you to decide for your needs.), but all the same, value for the dollar is what's always driven my purchases with anything. If I can get 80% (or better!) of the performance of top of the line equipment for half the price, I'll go for that in a heartbeat and be happy.

Wait...what's the question?

Skullcandy, discuss.