Skullcandy Crusher Evo Wireless Headphones Review

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo are straightforward wireless over-ear headphones with a similar design to the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless 2016. The manufacturer's logo is found on the headband's hinge.

These over-ears are decently comfortable. They're lightweight and don't clamp too tight on your head. Also, the headband and ear cups' padding feel plushy against the skin. They feel similar to the Skullcandy Crusher 360 Wireless. However, the ear cups can get warm after a long period of use.

These headphones have okay physical controls, which are easy to use. Each button has a different feel, making distinguishing one from the other easy. There are voice prompts for turning the headphones on and off and when pairing and connecting the headphones.

On the left ear cup:

• Opaque circle button:
• Single press: Raises the volume.
• Hold and press: Skips the track forward.
• Middle unmarked button:
• Single press: Raises the volume.
• Hold and press: Skips the track forward.
• Circle button:
• Single press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
• Double press: Activates voice assistant.

On the right ear cup:

• Haptic bass slider:
• Slide upward: Raises the bass.
• Slide downward: Lowers the bass.

Like most over-ears, these headphones aren't very portable. While they fold into a more compact format, their bulky design may not fit easily into your bag or purse.

The pouch is okay. It has a soft cloth fabric inside and a small pouch to store the cables securely. It clips to close. While it can protect against scratches and scuffs, it won't protect the headphones from the impacts of hard drops.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have a good build quality. They're mostly made of plastic, with faux leather padding on the ear cups and soft silicone and fabric padding on the headband. They feel very solid and durable. However, the hinges are a potential weak link and are prone to wear and tear over time.

These over-ears have a fairly stable fit but aren't the best choice if you want to use them at the gym or park. They stay on your head when you're on your way to work but will fall off your head during more intense head movements.

• Skullcandy Crusher Evo headphones
• 1/8" TRRS audio cable
• USB-C charging cable
• Pouch
• Manuals

Using the 'Music' EQ, which is the default setting, and the haptic bass slider set to its lowest setting, the Skullcandy Crusher Evo have an excited sound well-suited for genres like rock and pop. They deliver extra thump, rumble, and boom while sibilants are bright. Vocals and instruments are clear and present too. Their companion app offers a few EQ presets if you want to change their sound. You can also use the haptic bass feature to add more bass.

These over-ears have satisfactory frequency response consistency. Their bass and treble delivery can vary across listeners depending on their fit, seal, and positioning on your head, so it's important to take the time to adjust their fit each time you use them to get a more consistent sound. Having a lot of hair or wearing glasses can also break the ear cup's seal on your head and result in a drop in bass.

The bass accuracy of these headphones is good. The entire range is even but slightly overemphasized, which adds extra boom, thump, and punch to the mix. Songs like Satisfaction by Benny Benassi benefit from the extra bass, but if you want to feel your bones rattle, you can turn up the haptic bass slider.

These headphones have excellent mid accuracy. The entire range is neutral and balanced, so vocals and lead instruments are clear and present. A small dip in the high-mid slightly weakens vocals and instruments.

The treble accuracy is good. This range is more uneven than the previous ranges, and the low-treble is slightly underemphasized, veiling vocals and instruments. In contrast, the mid-treble is overemphasized, making sibilants like cymbals piercing.

These over-ears have decent peaks and dips performance. The peak in the high-bass affects the left driver slightly more than the right and adds extra boom to the mix, while the dip in the low-mid thins out vocals and lead instruments. The dip in the high-mid and low-treble also affects the left driver more prominently than the right, and veils vocals and lead instruments. The peak in the mid-treble affects both drivers equally, making sibilants piercing or painful.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have satisfactory imaging. A good portion of headphones we've tested from this manufacturer have good quality control and imaging. However, there have been a couple of products with imaging issues, like the Skullcandy Jib Wireless. However, imaging varies across units. Our unit's left and right drivers are well-matched in group delay, resulting in tight bass and transparent imaging. The drivers are also well-matched in amplitude and frequency response, which ensures a stable and balanced stereo image. However, there's some mismatch in phase response. A peak in the phase response's mid to high-mid is noticeable in vocal-centric content and skews audio to the right.

Their passive soundstage performance is sub-par. Their soundstage is natural-sounding, but audio seems to be coming from inside your head rather than from speakers around you. Also, their closed-back design makes them sound less open and spacious than open-back headphones.

These headphones have a satisfactory weighted harmonic distortion performance. A peak in the high-bass and low-mid at moderate and high volumes affects the clarity of mixes. However, it's somewhat minor and tricky to hear with real-life content.

These are the settings we used to test these headphones. We also tested these headphones with the haptic bass slider set to its lowest setting to get a response as close to neutral as possible. Our results are only valid when using these settings.

These over-ears have poor noise isolation. They lack noise cancelling and don't block out bass-heavy noises like bus or plane engines. They also struggle to block out background voices, which can be annoying if you want to use them at the office. However, they do a better job isolating against higher-frequency noises, like the hum of a nearby AC unit.

These headphones have adequate leakage performance. While they leak a bit of noise, it sounds mostly thin and may be distracting for those around you if you're in a very quiet environment.

The integrated microphone has satisfactory recording quality. Your voice can sound a bit muffled and thin, but whoever's on the other end of the line will understand you.

The microphone has a middling noise handling performance. It can struggle to separate your voice from background noises in noisy environments like a busy train station.

These headphones have great battery performance. The manufacturer advertises them to last 40 hours continuously, though we measured just over 34 hours. However, battery life can vary depending on use. If you can't readily top up their battery life, you can use them passively with their included 1/8" TRRS audio cable. The manufacturer also advertises that you can charge them for ten minutes to get four hours of battery life. Unfortunately, they don't have any power-saving features to help conserve battery life when not in use.

The Skullcandy app is decent. You can use it to check the battery level or choose from one of the three EQ presets: 'Music', 'Podcast', or 'Movie'. You can also use the Personal Sound feature to take a test for the headphones to create a sound profile optimized to your hearing capabilities. However, the app lacks a graphic or parametric EQ for greater customization options.

These headphones also support Tile, so if you lose your headphones, you can use the Tile app to locate them.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have satisfactory Bluetooth connectivity. They don't support NFC or multi-device pairing, which is disappointing. Also, their PC latency is too high to be suitable for gaming. Their latency on iOS and Android is lower and still falls within good levels, so you can use them to watch videos or movies without significant lipsync mismatch. However, some apps compensate for latency.

These headphones come with a 1/8" TRRS cable to use them with a wired connection. There's also a USB-C cable for charging.

These headphones can connect to Bluetooth-enabled PCs with full audio and mic compatibility. You can also use their analog cable with full compatibility.

If you want to use these over-ears on your PlayStation console, you can only connect their analog cable to your controller's AUX port. You'll have full audio and mic compatibility, though.

You can plug these headphones into your Xbox console's controller for full audio and microphone compatibility.