Frankly, the original Skullcandy Hesh is one of my least-favorite headphones, with a massively bassy balance and dull treble. So when Dr. Tetsuro Oishi, Skullcandy’s new director of electrical and acoustical engineering (and a recent recruit from Bose), told me he’d redesigned the Hesh as the new Hesh 2.0, I was hoping for improvement. I got it, big-time. The $59 Hesh 2.0 actually sounded really good: a bit bass-heavy, sure, but not at the expense of the mids or the treble. To emphasize Skullcandy’s new research-heavy approach, Oishi gave me his pitch from behind some swanky audio measurement gear. “We’ve gone from four product development people to 20,” he said, with the promise that we’d be seeing a significant upgrade in sound quality from future Skullcandy ’phones.
