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. They're available in 'Chill Grey' and 'True Black' color variants.

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

These headphones have adequate controls. There's a button that lets you turn the headphones on/off and activate pairing mode. When held down, the volume buttons can also be used to skip tracks forward or backward. The center button lets you play/pause your music and handles all the call-related functions. There's also a haptic bass slider, which can increase audio bass as well as vibrations. The buttons are clicky, and there's some audio feedback, which is nice.

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. There's soft cloth fabric inside, as well as a small pouch to store the cables. It clips to close. While it can likely protect against scratches and scuffs, it may not 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, but the hinges are a potential weak link.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo are adequately stable. They should stay on your head during casual listening sessions. However, they may fall off your ears during more intense movements, so they aren't ideal to wear to the gym.

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

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have a fairly balanced, but bass-heavy sound profile. The extra boom and punch in the bass range can please fans of genres like EDM and hip-hop. However, the mid-range is still quite neutral, so they're also suitable for vocal-centric content.

We tested these headphones with their default EQ setting: 'Music'. We set the haptic bass slider to its lowest setting, as the bass was further emphasized at any of its higher settings. You can see the difference in bass response across the different haptic bass settings here.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have a decent frequency response consistency. Their bass and treble delivery can vary across listeners depending on their fit, seal, and positioning on your head. However, having lots of hair or wearing glasses can break the seal, resulting in a somewhat inconsistent audio delivery.

These headphones have good bass accuracy. The entire range is even but slightly overemphasized, which adds an extra boom, thump, and punch to the mix.

These headphones have excellent mid accuracy. The entire range is quite neutral and balanced, so vocals and lead instruments are clear and present.

These headphones have satisfactory treble accuracy. While most of the range is quite neutral, the overemphasis in the mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals piercing or painful.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have decent peaks and dips performance. The peak in the high-bass adds extra boom to the mix, while the dip in the low-mids can thin out vocals and lead instruments. The dip in the high-mids and low-treble can hurt the comprehensibility of vocals and lead instruments, making them weak or distant. The peak in the mid-treble makes sibilants piercing or painful.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have satisfactory imaging. Their weighted group delay falls below the audibility threshold, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble. They're well-matched in amplitude, but their phase and frequency response are a bit mismatched. As a result, objects in the stereo image like voices and footsteps may not be accurately placed. However, these results are only valid for our test unit, and your experience may vary.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have a middling passive soundstage. Their soundstage is natural-sounding, but audio seems like it's coming from inside your head, rather than from speakers placed all around you. Also, their closed-back design makes them sound less open and spacious compared to open-back headphones.

These headphones don't have a virtual soundstage feature.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have a decent weighted harmonic distortion performance. Aside from a small peak in the high-bass and low-mids, most of the response falls within good limits, resulting in mostly clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings we used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when using these settings.

We tested these headphones with the haptic bass slider set to its lowest setting to get a response as close to neutral as possible.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have poor noise isolation. They don't block out bass-heavy noises like bus or plane engines, and they struggle to block out background voices. However, they do a better job isolating against higher-frequency noises, like the hum of a nearby AC unit.

These headphones have adequate leakage. 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 Skullcandy Crusher Evo have an integrated microphone.

The microphone has a satisfactory recording quality. Your voice can sound a bit muffled and thin, but whoever's on the other end of the line should be able to 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.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have an impressive battery performance. They last over 34 hours off of a single charge, so you don't have to worry about recharging them daily. You can also 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, but we don't test for this. 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, create a personalized sound, or choose from one of the three EQ presets: 'Music', 'Podcast', or 'Movie'. However, some listeners may be disappointed that they lack a graphic or parametric EQ for greater customization options.

Update 10/29/2021: These headphones were updated to Test Bench 1.5 and their latency values have changed. Our previous Test Bench 1.4 measurements reported 'PC Latency' at 238 ms, 'iOS Latency' at 32 ms, and 'Android Latency' at 92 ms. However, our new test bench uses an average of three measurements instead of one, resulting in 228 ms of latency on PCs, 136 ms on iOS, and 139 ms on Android. As a result, we have updated our text to better reflect test bench 1.5 measurements.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have satisfactory Bluetooth connectivity. They don't support NFC or multi-device pairing, which is a bit disappointing. Also, their latency on PCs is likely too high to be suitable for gaming. Their latency on iOS and Android is a bit lower, though, so you can use them to watch videos or movies. However, some apps compensate for latency, so your real-world experience may vary.

These headphones don't support any non-Bluetooth wireless connections.

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

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

These headphones don't have a base or a dock.