Skullcandy Indy Fuel Truly Wireless  Headphones Review

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel have a stalk design that looks somewhat similar to the Anker SoundCore Liberty Air 2 Truly Wireless. They feature a matte plastic construction that shouldn’t retain too many fingerprint marks. They’re sleek overall and don’t poke out from the ears too much. They're available in black or grey, so you may want to check out the Skullcandy Indy Evo True Wireless if you're looking for a more eye-catching pair of earbuds.

These headphones are decently comfortable. They're lightweight, don’t put too much pressure on the inside of the ear, and come with a couple of differently sized ear-tips and stability sleeves, so finding a suitable fit isn’t too hard. That said, their slightly larger outer buds can start to cause some fatigue during longer listening sessions.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds have alright touch-sensitive controls on both buds. They offer a lot of functionality but can be a bit tricky to use at first. While there are only voice prompts for pairing mode, switching EQs, and powering the headphones on and off, there are beeps to let you know you've registered a command.

On the left earbud:

• One tap: Lowers the volume.
• Touch and hold for two seconds: Skips the track backward.

On the right earbud:

• One tap: Raises the volume.
• Touch and hold for two seconds: Skips the track forward.

On either earbud:

• Double tap: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers or ends calls.
• Triple tap: Activates voice assistant.
• Double tap and hold for two seconds: Cycles between the following EQ presets: 'Movie', 'Podcast', and 'Music', which is the default mode.
• One tap and hold for two seconds: Activates ambient mode, which allows you to hear your surroundings without turning off your audio.
• Touch and hold for four seconds: Powers the headphones on.
• Touch and hold for six seconds: Powers the headphones off.
• Touch and hold for 10 seconds: Resets the headphones.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds have outstanding breathability, which is to be expected from truly wireless headphones. They don't trap heat in your ears, and you shouldn't sweat more than normal while wearing them.

Like most truly wireless headphones, these in-ears are exceptionally portable. They can easily be tossed into a bag or pocket and have a reasonably small charging case that doesn’t take up much space.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds' charging case is good. It’s made of dense matte plastic that should protect the headphones from bumps, scratches, falls, and minor water exposure. It also supports wireless charging, which is handy if you don’t feel like plugging the case in. Unfortunately, the case’s lid may not close if the buds aren’t precisely placed in their cradles.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds are well-built. The buds and case are dense plastic that shouldn’t take too much damage from drops or falls. The buds are also rated IP55 for dust and water resistance.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel are stable in-ear headphones. Thanks to their included stability sleeves, they do a very good job of staying in your ear, especially once you’ve found the right combination of sleeve and ear tip sizes. Due to their truly wireless design, you won’t have to worry about an audio cable snagging on something while you’re on the go.

• Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds
• Charging case
• 3x ear tips
• 2x stability sleeves
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Manuals

Using the 'Music' EQ preset, which is the default one, the Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds have a bass-heavy sound profile. They have an accurate and neutral bass range, delivering adequate thump, punch, and boom. The rest of the response is underemphasized, so vocals and lead instruments are pushed to the back of the mix and sound veiled as well as dull. On the upside, there are three built-in EQ presets: 'Movie', 'Podcast', and 'Music'.

The frequency response consistency is great. The headphones are sensitive to fit, seal, and positioning, which can affect their treble delivery. However, assuming you find the best fit using the included ear tips, you should be able to get a more consistent sound each time you use them.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel’s bass accuracy is outstanding. The range is flat and even, yielding adequate thump and rumble in genres like EDM or hip-hop without sounding boomy or muddy.

The mid accuracy is very good. Vocals and lead instruments shouldn’t sound cluttered, but a sustained dip from the mid to high-mid range pushes them slightly towards the back of the mix and weakens their clarity and detail.

These headphones have poor treble accuracy. The range is uneven and underemphasized, which veils vocals and lead instruments. Higher notes, like sibilants, also sound dull and lispy.

The peaks and dips performance is excellent. They’re reasonably well-balanced and stay flat throughout the entire frequency range, though an extended low bump starting in the high-bass range generates a little boominess and muddiness, while a dip in the mid-mid nudges vocals and lead instruments toward the back of the mix. A bump in the high-mid can create a little bit of harshness, but it's a bit more prominent in the right driver. A small dip in the low-treble can slightly veil vocals and lead instruments, while a peak in the mid-treble makes sibilants like S and T sounds piercing.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel's stereo imaging performance is superb. Their weighted group delay falls entirely beneath the audibility threshold, ensuring tight bass and transparent treble. The L/R drivers are exceptionally well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, which results in the accurate placement of objects in the stereo image, like voices and footsteps. These results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds' passive soundstage is bad. Like most in-ears, these headphones bypass any outer-ear interaction. Combined with their closed-back design, this creates a small soundstage. Sound is likely to be perceived as coming from the inside of your head rather than from speakers placed in front or around you.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel's have a very good weighted harmonic distribution performance. Aside from a slight spike in the low to mid-treble range, frequencies stay within good limits, ensuring mostly clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings we used to test the Skullcandy Indy Fuel. We used the medium-sized ear tips, as the smallest tips were too small to ensure a secure fit. Our results are only valid when using this configuration.

The passive noise isolation performance is alright. Like the Skullcandy Dime 2 True Wireless, they do an outstanding job of filtering out mid and treble-range ambient noise, so you shouldn’t hear too much chatter from nearby coworkers or the hum of an AC unit. Unfortunately, they aren’t nearly as effective in blocking out ambient noise in the bass range, so you're likely to hear sounds like the rumble of bus engines and construction equipment.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds' noise leakage is outstanding. They leak almost no audio, so you can listen to music at very high volumes without worrying about disturbing people nearby, even in quiet environments.

The integrated microphone has decent recording quality. Your voice should be easy to understand and reasonably natural-sounding, though perhaps a little thin and muffled.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel's microphone's noise handling performance is disappointing. The mic struggles to separate your voice from moderate ambient noise, so if you're taking a call from somewhere like a busy street, your voice can be drowned out.

These headphones have a disappointing battery performance. While they're advertised as having a continuous runtime of six hours, we measured only three hours of playback on a full charge with our unit. Thankfully, their case provides an additional four full charges, which should be enough for a day at work and the commute back home. The buds are also advertised to provide two hours of playtime with only 10 minutes of charging. Our unit was able to provide three hours of playback on a 15-minute charge. Unfortunately, they don't have any power-saving measures like a standby mode to reduce battery drain when not in use. However, battery life can vary depending on usage, so your real-life experience may differ.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds' companion app is poor. It offers very little functionality, with the only controls being a toggle switch for the ambient noise mode and enabling firmware updates. It displays your current EQ mode but doesn’t allow you to change it. If you want headphones that let you switch EQ presets in their app, check out the Skullcandy Indy ANC True Wireless, or the Skullcandy Grind Fuel True Wireless, which offer a graphic EQ as well as presets.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds have decent Bluetooth connectivity. They support Bluetooth 5.0, but not NFC or multi-device pairing, so you can't stream music off your phone while remaining connected to your computer. Their latency is too high on PC to be suitable for playing video games or streaming movies. That said, their latency on mobile iOS and Android devices is very low, so watching videos on YouTube on your phone shouldn't be too big an issue. Some apps and devices compensate for audio latency differently, so your own experience may vary in the real world.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel come with a USB-C to USB-A cable for recharging their carrying case. However, you can't use the buds wired.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel are fully compatible with Bluetooth-enabled PCs. However, you can't connect the buds to your PC in any other way.

The Skullcandy Indy Fuel True Wireless Earbuds have a charging case that can supply roughly four additional charges. You can recharge it wirelessly or via the included USB-C to USB-A charging cable.