Skullcandy Riff Wireless 2 Headphones Review

These on-ears have a limited edition skin called 'Forest Green'. Their plasticky frame is mostly olive green with light green topographical detailing on the ear cups. There are also bright orange accents surrounding the ear cups and in the manufacturer's logo on the headband. These headphones only come in one other color variant, 'Black', which is solid in color and doesn't have a pattern on the ear cups.

These on-ears are fairly comfortable. They're lightweight and don't clamp very tightly on your ears. However, due to their design, they press directly on your ears, which can be fatiguing over time. The headband also lacks padding.

These headphones have an okay control scheme. There are three buttons on the back of the right ear cup, which are clicky and easy to use. There are chimes to let you know when you've reached minimum and maximum volume, as well as voice prompts when you're switching between presets and the EQ in the app. There's also a voice prompt when turning the game mode on and off, although you can only switch modes and EQ via the app.

Middle button:

• Single press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
• Single press and then press again for one second: Connect to a second device or enter pairing mode.
• Press and hold for one second: Turns the headphones on.
• Press and hold for three seconds: Turns the headphones off.

'+' button:

• Single press: Raises the volume.
• Press and hold for one second: Skips to the next track.

'-' button:

• Single press: Lowers the volume.
• Press and hold for one second: Skips to the previous track.

These headphones are pretty portable. In their default form, they take up some room on your table or desk. Luckily, the ear cups can swivel to lay flat, and you can even fold them to reduce their footprint.

They have a sub-par build quality. They're completely made of cheap plastic, and parts of the build, like the hinges of the headband, which can move around by accident, don't seem durable or sturdy. Their headband also lacks padding and is a bit thin, so this part may crack or break over time. Unlike the JBL Tune 510BT Wireless, the ear cup's faux leather padding extends throughout the inner cup instead of only surrounding the edges of the cup. This allows the cups to sit flat on your ears.

These headphones have mediocre stability. If you're listening to audio at your desk, they won't move around. However, if you want to use them during high-intensity workouts, they'll fall off your head.

• Skullcandy Riff Wireless 2 headphones
• 1/8" TRRS to 1/8" TRRS cable
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Quick Start guide

These headphones have a pretty excited, v-shaped sound profile. They have intense thump, punch, and boom, while sibilants like cymbals are piercing. This sound is well-suited for genres like pop and rock, but if you prefer something different, their companion app offers a graphic EQ and presets.

The frequency response consistency is great. There are some deviations in treble delivery due to the headphones' fit and positioning. However, once you take the time to properly adjust them on your head, you can achieve a more consistent sound each time you use them.

The bass accuracy is satisfactory. The response is overemphasized across the range, resulting in extra thump, rumble, punch, and warm. However, all this extra bass also sounds pretty boomy.

The Skullcandy Riff Wireless 2's mid accuracy is good. There's a dip in the low to mid-mid, which thins out vocals and instruments, pushing them to the back of your mix. The high-mid, in contrast, is fairly neutral, so vocals and instruments still have clarity and presence.

The treble accuracy is fair. The low-treble is slightly underemphasized, which slightly veils vocals and instruments. However, the mid-treble is very overemphasized. This results in sharp sibilants like the piercing hi-hats in songs like Roxanne by The Police.

The peaks and dips performance is just mediocre. There's a large peak from the mid to high-bass, which adds extra boom and punch to audio. A dip between the low to mid-mid thins out vocals and instruments while also pushing them to the back of the mix. A small peak in the high-mid help brings some clarity and detail to these sounds, while a shallow dip in the low-treble veils them. A major peak in the mid-treble makes sibilants like hi-hats piercing and painful.

These on-ears have excellent imaging performance. Although some of Skullcandy's cheaper models have shown issues of driver mismatch in the past, our unit's L/R drivers are well-matched in group delay, phase, amplitude, and frequency response. This is important for the accurate placement of objects like footsteps in the stereo image. That said, imaging can vary between units and can be an indicator of quality control and ergonomics.

Passive soundstage performance is passable. Due to their design, they can create a sense of spaciousness. However, they have some trouble fully interacting with your outer ear, which hurts their immersiveness. As a result, their soundstage seems small and as if sound is coming from inside your head rather than from speakers placed in the room around you.

The Skullcandy Riff Wireless 2 have a decent weighted harmonic distortion performance. The left driver has a bump in the high-bass to low-mid at moderate and at high volumes. It's quite minor and can be hard to notice with real-life content.

These are the settings used to test these on-ears. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

The noise isolation performance is bad, though that's normal from on-ears without noise cancelling (ANC). They don't block out any bass range noise like bus engines and won't cut down any ambient chatter. That said, they can reduce some high-pitched noise like the hum of an AC unit.

The leakage performance is disappointing. Leakage is concentrated between the mid to treble range, which sounds somewhat full. If you like to listen to audio at high volumes, others around you will hear it, even in moderately noisy environments like a busy office.

The integrated mic's recording quality is very good. Your voice sounds natural and clear to others over the phone.

The mic's noise handling performance is okay. Your voice is clear and easy to understand if you're taking a call from a quiet environment. However, if you're speaking from somewhere loud, like a busy street, your voice can get lost in the noise.

The Skullcandy Riff Wireless 2's battery performance is outstanding. The manufacturer advertises them to last 36 hours continuously, and we measured over that, though this is likely due to the difference in testing volume between ourselves and Skullcandy. Keep in mind that battery life can also vary depending on usage. Luckily, they have an auto-off timer to help conserve battery life when not in use. If you're charging the headphones, you can't still receive audio via Bluetooth or USB, but if you also use their analog cable, you can receive audio this way.

The Skullcandy app is good, and you can see a video of how it works here. It offers a graphic EQ and presets to help you customize their sound to your liking. You can also check the battery life, adjust the volume, access the quick guide, or redirect to Tile, a secondary app that helps you find your lost electronics. You can even turn Game Mode on and off, which helps lower latency.

The Skullcandy Riff Wireless 2 have great Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing, meaning you can stay connected to your PC and smartphone at the same time. While they have high latency on PCs, their latency on iOS and Android devices is a bit less, and isn't as noticeable. However, if you like to stream video, you'll want to check out their Game Mode via the app. It lowers latency across devices, resulting in 118ms of latency on PCs, 6ms of latency on iOS, and 78ms of latency on Android. Keep in mind that some apps and devices compensate for latency.

These headphones come with a 1/8" TRRS cable. They also come with a USB-A to USB-C charging cable, but you can't use it for audio.

These on-ears have full audio and mic compatibility via Bluetooth and analog.

You can connect these headphones to your PlayStation console by plugging their analog cable into your controller's AUX port.

These headphones are only compatible with Xbox consoles via analog. You can use their 1/8" TRRS cable to plug them into your controller's AUX port with full audio and mic compatibility.