Skullcandy Navigator Headphone w/Mic3 Black/Black, One Size

Design #######
These headphones are a poorly designed mess. The construction consists of a large memory foam ring ontop of the drivers, with fabric sown around the memory foam and a thinner layer of fabric above the sound hole to transmit the actual sound. This design causes many problems.
 
First off, the "memory" foam, isn't that soft at all, and it's thick dimensions combined with the already strong pressure from the head band, presses on your ears quite strongly, leaving them uncomfortable in just half an hour or less.
 
The second problem is the placement of the drivers in relation to your ears. The thickness of the memory foam pads, places your ears too far away from the drivers, and the fabric although thin, detracts from the sound. Basically it muffles or smooths out sounds at low volume levels. And the fabric also makes the unbalance of the left and right drivers more prevelent.
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Audio ########
On the good side, there's good audio quality and good enough sound isolation. The sound from the driver is extremely nice for the price point, and enjoyable in any kind of music (i'm talking about the raw quality of the drivers, disregarding the pad design). The foam also provides an acceptable amount of sound isolation, enough that you can wear them in public.
 
The two audio flaws, is that there's lower response in the low frequencies and slightly unbalanced drivers. The response means the volume increases very smoothly before the harmonics start to become loud; which isn't bad because you can still listen on high volume levels perfectly fine. The unbalanced drivers are also noticable in some cases, althought I think the user can get used to it given enough time.
 
So basically, they have good isolation, horrible comfort, and theoretically good drivers that are made overly-smooth/muffled by the fabric.
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Modding ####
Then I decided to modify these headphones a bit to try and fix some of the problems.
 
I cut out the fabric over the sound hole and I tore out a lot of the memory foam. Now the headphones are much more comfortable than before, and the non-muffled sound drivers sound amazing and detailed. The difference is night and day between the fabric covering the drivers and not covering them. The only problem is, since i removed part of the memory foam, I've lost any usable sound isolation, making them useless for public listening. But compared to how these were before, they truley sound great. The drivers really are good, it's just how the pads were built which ruins their sound quality. Also this made the unbalanced driver problem go away.
 
To sum it up
Stock earphones - Good isolation, Horrid comfort, overly-smooth sound
Cut out sound holes - Good isolation, Horrid comfort, amazing clear sound
Cut out sound holes and memory foam reduction - Horrible isolation, good comfort, amazing clear sound
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So I would never recommend these to anyone. Unless you can put up with its horrible design problems, then you don't need to own these. The fact that I had to modify these to get good sound and comfort and also lose my sound isolation in the process, just gives another reason not to own these.

review under construction

I bought them because I thought they would sound like aviators. I thought well they are made the same except on ear pad. They felt great as I put them on my ears ahhhhh.soft ear cushion..
then I played some of my music on them. after listening to them they didn't sound nothing like the aviators. aviators are way better. I love them. 

Along with the summary below, I have posted a Youtube video review of the Skullcandy Navigators. If you like the video, check out my channel for more reviews
 

 
Summary
 
BUILD
 
The Navigators have good build quality, with metals used in most parts of the headphone frame. They are lightweight and fold up into a more compact shape. The earpads are very isolating, though perhaps a little stuffy. The detachable flat cable is somewhat prone to tangling. They are comfortable headphones but I found I had to use the maximum headband size adjustment and I do not believe I have a particularly large head, so it may be worth making sure they will fit before trying them.
 
SOUND
 
The Navigators have a very dark, bassy sound with rolled off highs. They have a dry note to the treble but are otherwise quite dull and mid-bassy. They are even more muffled sounding than the similarly priced Logitech UE4000. They have a signature that would, combined with the good noise isolation, work well on noisy commutes. However in most cases I found them suffocatingly dark.
 
OVERALL
 
Unfortunately the sound of the Navigators makes them hard to recommend unless you do a lot of travelling and like your bass. They are sadly not nearly as balanced as the quite nice Skullcandy Aviators. That said, they have a good design and are worth a look if you are after a decently priced and very portable headphone.