Skullcandy Crusher 360 Wireless  Headphones Review

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 are stylish headphones that feel more premium than similar Skullcandy headphones. The limited-edition design has a black and tan color scheme that gives the headphones a high-end look. They have thick padding and large cups. They look fairly similar to the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless and Skullcandy Venue Wireless headphones, but in a flashier design.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 are fairly comfortable headphones, but some may feel like they're too tight. The memory foam padding is plushy and comfortable on the skin. They're lightweight, and the padded headband distributes the weight effectively. They feel similar to the Skullcandy Venue Wireless, but the cups are wider and suit more ear sizes.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360's control scheme is easy to use and offers good feedback. You get common functionalities like volume control, play/pause, and track skipping. You also have the power button that doubles as a pairing button as well. You get a nice and clear voice prompt during the procedure, which is convenient. Additionally, the left ear cup acts as a haptic bass slider, similar to the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless’ physical slider, but with a touch-sensitive control scheme.

Putting the bass slider to the max automatically reduces your volume by a notch to compensate for the elevated bass, which is a nice touch. However, you don't have any auditory feedback to let you know which bass setting you're on. There is an LED indicator on the headphones behind your left ear, which you don't see if you have them on your head.

Since these over-ears are fairly tight on the head, they create a good seal around the ears which doesn’t allow much airflow. Like most over-ears, the heat is trapped inside the ear cups, which won’t be ideal for sports. You might notice a difference in temperature and sweat more than usual during workouts.

Like most over-ears, the Skullcandy Crusher 360 aren’t very portable headphones. However, their design isn’t as bulky as other over-ears we’ve reviewed so far, and they can fold into a more compact format to fit inside their nice hard case. Unfortunately, the cups don’t swivel, which is something that would have made it easier to slide them inside a bag or to carry around your neck.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 come with a nice hard case that protects the headphones well against physical damage, water exposure, and scratches. There isn’t much wiggle room inside the case, which is great. There is also a pouch inside the case for you to travel with your accessories and cables.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 are better built than the Skullcandy Venue Wireless but feel similar to the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016. However, the headband is no longer made of metal and has instead been replaced by a dense and thick plastic material. It also allows Skullcandy to route the previously exposed cables inside the headband, which is nice. The ear cups also feel dense enough to survive a few accidental drops.

Since these headphones are fairly tight, they're stable on the head. You could jog with these without them falling off your head, but they're not designed for sports. On the upside, their wireless design also gets rid of the risk of them being yanked off your head if the cable were to get stuck or hooked on something.

• Skullcandy Crusher 360 headphones
• 1/8" TRRS audio cable
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Carrying case
• Manuals

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 have a sub-par frequency consistency, especially in the bass range. We measured more than 8dB of variance at 20Hz across our test human subjects. This will be noticeable, and we observed that having lots of hair or glasses can break the seal and result in a significant loss of bass. In the treble range, they were a lot more consistent across multiple re-seats, which is good. For headphones with a more consistent audio delivery, see the Skullcandy Crusher Evo Wireless.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 have sub-par bass accuracy. The LFE (low-frequency extension) is down to 10Hz, which is excellent. The response is also very overemphasized, which results in extra, rumble, and boom in your mixes. However, some users may find that they sound muddy. You can control the level of bass with the haptic bass touch-sensitive slider, though.

Also, their bass delivery varies across users and is sensitive to the quality of the fit, seal, and whether you wear glasses. The response here represents the average bass response, and your experience may vary.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360's mid accuracy is excellent. There's some overemphasis coming from the bass range into the low-mid, which can muddy and clutter vocals and lead instruments. However, the rest of the range is fairly flat and neutral, so vocals and lead instruments are present and clear.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360's treble performance is sub-par. It's overemphasized across the range, so vocals and lead instruments are harsh and painful. Sibilants like cymbals are also piercing and painful.

The imaging is very good. Weighted group delay (GD) is at 0.21, which is very good. The GD graph also shows the response is below the audibility threshold. This suggests a bass that is tight for the most part and a transparent treble. In terms of driver matching, our test unit was very well-matched, which is important for accurate localization and placement of objects (voice, instruments, video game effects) in the stereo image. However, there's a small amplitude mismatch on our unit, but these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 have a mediocre soundstage. Their PRTF response doesn't follow our reference very closely, but there is a decent amount of pinna interaction happening. This results in a soundstage that's perceived to be relatively large but located inside the listener's head. Additionally, the closed-back design will make them sound less open and spacious compared to open-back headphones.

The noise isolation performance is poor. These over-ear headphones don't have active noise cancellation (ANC), and therefore don't provide any isolation in the bass range. This means they will let in all the low rumbling noise of airplane and bus engines. In the mid-range, important for blocking speech, they isolate by about 9dB, which is okay. In the treble range, occupied by sharp sounds like S and Ts and A/C system noises, they achieve about 26dB of isolation, which is decent.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360's leakage performance is sub-par. A significant portion of the leakage is between 400Hz and 7kHz, which is a broad range and mostly covers the mid and treble ranges. This means that the leakage will sound thin. The overall level of the leakage is not that loud but still audible. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at one foot away averages at 46dB SPL and peaks at 57dB SPL, which is about the same as the noise of an average office.

The microphone has an okay recording quality. The LFE (low-frequency extension) of 261Hz results in a recorded/transmitted speech that is relatively thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) of 3.4kHz indicates a speech that's noticeably muffled and lacks detail. Also, the response between the LFE and HFE points is rather uneven. Speech will still be relatively understandable since speech comprehensibility is mostly dependent on the 500Hz-4kHz range.

The noise handling of the Skullcandy Crusher 360's integrated microphone is mediocre. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 12dB. This means they're best suited for quiet environments but may struggle to fully separate speech from ambient noise in moderately loud places like a busy street.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 have a great 36-hour battery life with the bass haptic feedback disabled. It's higher than the advertised 29 hours, but this number might be more accurate with the haptic bass enabled. You can get about three hours of continuous feedback with only 10 minutes of charging, according to Skullcandy. Unfortunately, they don't automatically switch off when inactive to save some power, but you can use them while charging and use them completely passively, even if the battery is dead.

These headphones don't come with an app or software for added customization options.

These headphones are Bluetooth compatible but don’t support NFC for easier and quick pairing procedure, and they can’t connect to multiple devices at a time, which would have been helpful at the office for switching between your computer and phone.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360's latency is too high for gaming but might be fine for some users when watching video content. Most Bluetooth headphones average around 200-220ms of delay. With 133ms of latency, some people may not notice the delay as much, especially since some devices and apps offer some compensation. They also support the aptX codec, which can give you overall better performance, and slightly lower latency as well.

These headphones come with a 1/8” TRRS cable that has an in-line microphone. You can use them passively and can also use the mic on most platforms that have the right audio jack, like most consoles and PCs.

The Skullcandy Crusher 360 don’t have a dock.