The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are decent mixed usage over-ear headphones that have an excited sound. They have a very v-shaped or smiley-face sound signature with overemphasized sub-bass, recessed mid-range, and sharp treble range. They're comfortable if you don’t have a wider head, and they have a good 24-hour battery life with a very useful quick charge feature. Unfortunately, their build quality isn’t on par with the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016, but on the upside, they have an amazing wireless range and can also connect to 2 devices simultaneously, which is convenient.
Our Verdict
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are fair for mixed usage. They're fairly versatile headphones since you can also use them wired to eliminate their latency issues. They're comfortable for longer listening sessions and are well-built. They have an excited sound profile and a decent ANC feature to isolate ambient noise during commuting. They're stable enough for most sports but aren’t sweat-resistant, and the over-ear design is not the most breathable. If used wirelessly, they won’t be great for watching TV and gaming, and the microphone won’t be the best to communicate in multiplayer games.
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Great battery life and wireless range.
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Easy to use controls.
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Decent noise isolation.
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A bit tight on some heads.
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Very bass-heavy sound might not be for everyone.
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Poor performance mic for voice calls.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are just okay for neutral sound. These headphones have a v-shaped sound signature with an overemphasized sub-bass, recessed mid-range, and hyped treble. However, this results in an excited sound that some may prefer but won't be for everyone. Unfortunately, they don’t have an EQ to customize the sound to your liking, but if you’re a fan of bass-heavy music, you’ll be satisfied with these.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are decent for commuting and traveling. They're comfortable for most but might be tight for some people. They also block a good amount of ambient noise but have a lot of self-noise, which will be audible if you’re not playing any audio. Their ANC feature is quite decent, and they don’t leak too much if you don’t blast your music at high volumes. Their long 24-hour battery will be more than enough for flights, and the nice provided case helps protect the headphones when you store them away.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are decent for sports. They're a bit tight on the head, so they're fairly stable for most sports and running. However, the over-ear fit is not very breathable, and these won’t be ideal, especially since they're not sweat resistant. They also are not very portable and don’t fold into a more portable format. Their bulky design might not be the best for certain exercises at the gym.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are alright for office use. Their long battery life will last you more than a full work day, and they're comfortable enough for long listening periods, but they might be a bit tight if you have a wider head. They block a decent amount of noise present in an office environment and help you focus on your task. If you also move away from your computer quite often, they can also be connected to your phone simultaneously, which can be very convenient.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are poor for gaming. Even if you can use them wired to eliminate the latency issues, the microphone isn't as great as gaming headsets on the market. If you play alone and don’t need a microphone, you can plug these into a controller without caring about wireless range, and they’ll be decent thanks to their comfort and excited audio reproduction.
- 6.8 Mixed Usage
- 6.6 Neutral Sound
- 7.2 Commute/Travel
- 7.1 Sports/Fitness
- 6.9 Office
- 5.0 Wireless Gaming
- 6.6 Wired Gaming
- 5.6 Phone Calls
- Updated Feb 20, 2020: Converted to Test Bench 1.4.
- Updated Nov 21, 2019: Converted to Test Bench 1.3.1.
- Updated Nov 21, 2019: Converted to Test Bench 1.3.
- Updated Apr 04, 2019: We've updated the battery section of the review as we couldn't confirm that these headphones have a standby mode.
- Updated Nov 26, 2018: Review published.
- Updated Nov 24, 2018: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Nov 22, 2018: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Nov 11, 2018: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Compared To Other Headphones
The Skullcandy Venue are versatile closed-back over-ear headphones that have a very excited sound profile. They have a decently built and lightweight design but might be a bit tight for some people. They're going to be better suited for bass-heavy genres and not vocal-centric music. They're decently comfortable and well-padded. Their ANC feature isn't the best when compared to higher-end models like the Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless, but it still does a good job at isolating you from ambient noise.
See our recommendations for the best wireless headphones and the best noise cancelling headphones.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless and the Skullcandy Crusher Evo Wireless are very similarly performing headphones, so you may prefer one over the other. The Crusher Evo come with a haptic bass slider, and they're better built. They have a longer battery life and a companion app with EQ presets. Also, their bass-heavy sound profile is a bit more neutral than the Venue's V-shaped sound profile. However, the Venue have a better case, are more stable, and isolate against more sounds.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are somewhat better headphones for most uses than the Skullcandy Hesh ANC Wireless. The Venue are better built, and their ANC can reduce the ambient noise around you. They can also be paired with up to two devices at the same time, and you can listen to audio while they're charging, which is nice. However, the Hesh have a more neutral sound profile, and their integrated mic offers better overall performance.
The Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016 and Skullcandy Venue Wireless perform very similarly. While the Venue are more comfortable and have a more exciting sound, the Crusher are better-built headphones and have a great 36-hour battery life. The Crusher also have a slider that lets you control the amount of bass you hear; it can go up to a ridiculous amount. On the other hand, the Venue can be paired with two devices simultaneously and have an ANC feature to isolate ambient noise.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are more versatile headphones than the Skullcandy Crusher 360 Wireless thanks to their ANC feature. They will be better suited for commuting and being at the office since they block more ambient noise. However, the Crusher 360 are noticeably better built and feel less plasticky than the Venue. Their overall sound signature is similar, but the Crusher 360 have nice haptic bass feedback as well. You also get more battery life from the Crusher 360.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are better over-ear headphones than the Skullcandy Hesh Evo Wireless. The Venue are better built, have more consistent bass and treble delivery, and can reduce the ambient noise around you, thanks to their ANC feature. They can also be paired with up to two devices at the same time. However, the Hesh Evo have a longer continuous battery life.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are better than the Skullcandy Crusher 2014 in pretty much every way. They're wireless, are better built, have an active noise cancelling feature, have volume controls, and have better audio reproduction. They have 24 hours of playback thanks to a rechargeable battery, while the Crusher uses AA batteries. The only test where the Crusher 2014 performed better was their microphone performance, which isn't enough to make them an overall better choice over the Venue.
The Skullcandy Venue Wireless are better headphones than the Skullcandy Hesh 3 Wireless. Their build quality is better, and they feel more durable. They're also less prone to bass inconsistencies, and they isolate more noise thanks to the ANC feature. On the other hand, the Hesh 3 have a better microphone for calls and are less expensive. They also have great battery life for their price tag but still don’t beat the 24 hours of the Venue.
The Beats Studio3 Wireless are better headphones than the Skullcandy Venue Wireless. The Beats have a more neutral sound profile as they pack a little less bass than the Skullcandy, and their treble is more mellow than harsh. They're better built and are more comfortable. Their ANC feature blocks more noise than the Skullcandy's, and the provided case is better. On the other hand, the Skullcandy can connect to two devices, and their bass isn’t as prone to inconsistencies as the Beats.
The Bose QuietComfort 35 II/QC35 II Wireless 2018 are better headphones than the Skullcandy Venue Wireless. The Bose's noise cancelling feature is better, and they have a more neutral sound profile than the Skullcandy. The Bose are more significantly more comfortable too, and feel better built. However, the battery life is slightly better on the Skullcandy, and they have better wireless range. They're also not as expensive as the more premium Bose.
The JBL Live 650 BTNC Wireless are slightly better mixed usage headphones than the Skullcandy Venue Wireless. They're more comfortable and feel better built. They also have better sound quality and a great EQ that lets you customize the sound profile to your liking. Both ANC features are fairly disappointing, but the JBL leak less, so you'll be able to listen at higher volumes
Test Results
These headphones have a sleek and low-profile look. They're mostly made of plastic, but they don’t feel as cheap as the Skullcandy Hesh 3 Wireless but aren't on par with the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016. They come in white with some small red accents or an all-black design and are great headphones to use outside.
The Skullcandy Venue are comfortable headphones but might be too tight for some people, fatiguing during long listening sessions. The cups are relatively large and fit most ears, and are well padded. They're fairly lightweight and don’t put too much pressure on the head. People with wider head sizes might not find these headphones as comfortable. For slightly more comfortable headphones that don't clamp as much as these, take a look at the JBL Live 650BTNC Wireless.
The Skullcandy Venue's control scheme is great and easy to use. They provide call and music control, a volume rocker, track skipping, and ANC control which can also let you go in ‘monitor mode’ to hear what’s going on around you. The buttons are rubberized but are still fairly tactile. You can also double-tap the main button for your device's voice assistant.
Like most over-ears, the headphones trap a bit of heat under the ear cups, and there’s not much airflow. You can use them during moderate physical activity, but you might feel you’re sweating more with over-ears. This shouldn’t be an issue for casual listening, especially if you take breaks here and there to let your ears cool off a bit.
The Skullcandy Venue are over-ears, which means they aren’t the most portable headphones. However, the cups can swivel and lay flat to easily slide in a bag or the provided case. However, they don't fold into a more compact format like the Skullcandy Hesh 3 Wireless or the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016.
The Skullcandy Venue come with a good and solid case that will protect the headphones from scratches, light water exposure, and impacts. The case is fairly thin and doesn’t add too much bulk for when you want to travel.
The Skullcandy Venue are an improvement over the cheap, plasticky Skullcandy Hesh 3 Wireless but aren't as well-built as the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016. They have fairly dense plastic cups that feel solid and shouldn’t get too damaged if dropped accidentally. The headband is also reinforced with a thin metal band. However, overall, they don’t feel like more premium headphones, and their weak point is probably the swiveling parts of the ear cups.
These over-ears are stable on the head, thanks to their tight fit. They're stable for light physical activities like running but won’t be ideal for more intense sports. On the upside, they're wireless, and you won’t have to worry about a cable getting hooked on something and yanking the headphones off your head.
- Skullcandy Venue Wireless headphones
- Carrying case
- Audio cable
- USB charging cable
- Manuals
The Skullcandy Venue's frequency response consistency is very good. Similar to some other ANC (active noise cancelling) headphones like the Bose QuietComfort 35/QC35 Wireless 2016 and the Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless, it seems these headphones use their noise cancelling system as a feedback tool to check for bass delivery. This results in a very consistent bass response across multiple users, which is great. They also perform quite consistently in the treble range, most likely due to the small size of their ear cups.
The bass accuracy is disappointing. It's overemphasized across the range, resulting in intense thump, rumble, and boom. However, some uses may find they sound very muddy.
The mid accuracy is decent. There's overemphasis coming from the bass range into the low-mid, which muddies vocals and lead instruments. While these sounds are present in your mixes, thanks to their neutral mid-mid, another bump in the high-mid can also make them honky and harsh.
The treble accuracy is sub-par. It's overemphasized across the range, resulting in harsh vocals and lead instruments. Sibilants like cymbals are also piercing and painful.
The imaging is excellent. Their weighted group delay is at 0.23, which is within good limits. The GD graph also shows that the entire group delay is within the audibility threshold. It indicates a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Also, the L/R drivers of our unit were very well-matched in amplitude, phase, and frequency response, which is important for the accurate localization and placement of objects (instruments, voice, footsteps) in the stereo image.
The Skullcandy Venue have a disappointing soundstage. The PRTF response shows a good amount of pinna activation; however, the activated resonances' accuracy isn't good. Also, there is no notch present around the 10kHz region. This, along with the closed-back design, results in a soundstage that's located inside the listener's head.
The Skullcandy Venue have a decent isolation performance. With ANC (active noise cancelling) enabled, these headphones achieved more than 11dB of isolation in the bass range, which is decent. This means they will be able to cancel out the low rumbling noises of airplane and bus engines to an acceptable degree. In the mid-range, important for blocking out speech, they achieve about 18dB of isolation, which is good. In the treble range, occupied by sharp sounds like S and Ts and computer fan noise, they isolate by about 28dB, which is great. However, these headphones produce a significantly high amount of self-noise, which could distract some people when there is no audio playing through the headphones.
The Skullcandy Venue's leakage performance is fair. A significant portion of their leakage is spread between 1kHz and 7kHz, which isn't very broad and is mostly concentrated in the treble range. This means the leakage will sound relatively thin. The overall level of the leakage is not very loud either. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage averages at 42dB SPL and peaks at around 58dB SPL at 1 foot away, which is just below the noise floor of most offices.
The microphone's recording quality is poor. LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 397Hz, resulting in a recorded/transmitted speech that sounds relatively thin. The drop-off above 4KHz is a limitation of Bluetooth protocol and is common among Bluetooth microphones. This makes speech muffled and lacking in detail.
The noise handling of the Skullcandy Venue's integrated microphone is disappointing. This mic achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 7dB in our SpNR test, indicating it's best suited for quiet environments and may struggle to fully separate speech from ambient noise even in moderately loud situations.
Their battery life is right around 24 hours, which will last you more than a day with intense listening. They have a quick charge feature that will give you around five hours of continuous playback for only 10 minutes of charging time, according to Skullcandy’s specs sheet. You can also use them passively if the battery is dead, but without the ANC feature. They also have a power-saving mode to save battery life. You can get more battery life from the Skullcandy Crusher 360 Wireless, but this could be because they don't have an ANC feature like these over-ears.
Unfortunately, the Skullcandy Venue don't have a compatible app. If you want headphones with an app that lets you customize their sound, check out the Skullcandy Crusher Evo Wireless.
The Skullcandy Venue Bluetooth headphones can pair with two devices simultaneously, which is great if you want to switch between a computer and a phone. Unfortunately, they don't have NFC support. On the upside, they support Bluetooth version 5.0, so you might experience better wireless range and reliability if you have a 5.0 source.
Like most Bluetooth headphones, their latency may be too high for video content or gaming. However, you can use them with the provided audio cable, which gets rid of latency issues.
They also come with a 1/8” TRRS cable, so you can use the headphones passively, even when the battery is dead. You can't use Bluetooth and the ANC features if the battery is dead, but if not, you can still use the ANC feature while using the headphones wired. If you want to use them for gaming, you can connect them to your controller and have audio and microphone support, and you won’t have any latency issues.
The Skullcandy Venue don't have a base/dock. If you want a versatile headset with a base that you can also use wired, check out the SteelSeries Arctis 7 Wireless 2017.