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 made of matte plastic with the manufacturer's logo located on the headband's hinge. For the most part, they're a single color with tonal accents and fabric along the top of the headband, which is slightly reminiscent of the Sennheiser MOMENTUM 4 Wireless' use of fabric. You can choose between bright colors like 'Budweiser Red' or more subdued office-appropriate shades like our unit's 'Chill Grey' colorway. The buttons and ports are found along the bottom of the ear cups, which successfully hides visual clutter.

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 dense and plush 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.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have adequate physical controls, which are easy to use, and they lightly click when you actuate them. Each button has a different feel, and they're fairly large, 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.
• Press-and-hold: Skips the track forward.
• Middle unmarked button:
• Single press: Pause/play. Answer/end call.
• Press-and-hold for three seconds: Reject incoming call.
• Double press: Activate voice assistant.
• Circle button:
• Single press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
• Press-and-hold: Skips to previous track.
• Double press: Activates voice assistant.

On the right ear cup:

• Haptic bass slider:
• Slide upward: Raises the bass.
• Slide downward: Lowers the bass.
• Power button:
• Press-and-hold for three seconds: Power on/off.
• Press-and-hold for five seconds when turned off: Enter Bluetooth pairing mode and power on.

Like most over-ears, the Skullcandy Crusher Evo aren't very portable. However, they fold into a more compact format to reduce their otherwise bulky design. Still, you can fit them into your backpack, but they probably won't fit in a purse.

The pouch is okay. It has a soft cloth fabric inside and a small interior pocket to store the cables securely. It uses a side-release buckle that ensures the headphones are securely stored away, and when each side of the buckle is snapped into place, it becomes a handle. While the pouch can protect against scratches and scuffs, it won't protect the headphones from the impact of hard drops.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have a good build quality. They're mostly made of matte plastic, with faux leather-covered padding on the ear cups and soft silicone and fabric padding on the headband. They feel very solid and durable. However, the hinges pose 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 and at your desk but will fall off your head during more intense head movements.

• Skullcandy Crusher Evo Wireless headphones
• 1/8" TRRS audio cable
• USB-A to 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 with a cluttered low-mid-range, not too different from the Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless' tuning in those bass and mids. However, Skullcandy adds some extra treble for bright sibilants. Vocals and instruments come across as fairly forward in the mix, but higher vocal and guitar parts lack a bit of presence compared to the exaggerated low-end. Their companion app offers a few EQ presets if you want to change their sound, but there isn't a dedicated custom equalizer. You can also use the haptic bass feature to add a bonkers amount of bass to test your limits.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo 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 thick hair or wearing glasses can also break the ear cup's seal on your head and result in a drop in bass volume.

The bass accuracy of these headphones is good. The entire range is even but overemphasized, which adds extra boom, thump, and punch to the mix. However, it can sound bloated on some tracks. 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 mostly neutral and balanced, so vocals and lead instruments are clear. The slightly elevated low-mids can cause busy tracks to sound somewhat cluttered. A small dip in the high-mid slightly weakens the presence of vocals and instruments.

The treble accuracy is good. Most of the low-treble is underemphasized, veiling details in 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. With that said, 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 mismatch in phase response. A peak in the phase response's center of the mids into the high-mids is noticeable in vocal-centric content and skews audio to the right.

Their passive soundstage performance is sub-par, which is expected of closed-back headphones. The resulting playback isn't immersive or spacious sounding. Their soundstage is natural-sounding, but your music seems to be coming from inside your head rather than from speakers around you.

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 purity of audio. However, it's somewhat minor and difficult 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.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have poor noise isolation. They lack noise cancelling and don't block out low-pitched noises like bus engines or low mid-range sounds like ambient din in plane cabins. Voices are slightly muffled, though intelligible, and high-pitched sounds like subway brake squeals receive the greatest reduction, as expected from passive-only isolation. Overall, you'll hear your neighbors if you're in an office or commuting.

These headphones have adequate leakage performance. The audio that escapes sounds thin but complete with lead parts and rhythm. Only bass parts don't leak much at all. Leakage depends on how loud you set the volume, but the trebly parts of songs, like cymbals, are likely to be heard in most moderately quiet spaces.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo's integrated microphone has satisfactory recording quality. Your voice will sound a bit muffled and lacking a bit of clarity in articulation, though you'll still sound mostly like yourself. If you speak really loudly, it's possible you'll 'blow out' the microphone, which will impact intelligibility.

The microphone's noise-handling performance is middling. It struggles to separate your voice from background noise in the environment. However, with quieter, constant noise, you'll be understandable even if it's annoying to the person on the other end of the call. The mic can also become overwhelmed by sudden and loud environmental noises and obscure most of your speech.

These headphones have great battery performance. The manufacturer advertises them to last 40 hours continuously, but we measured just over 34 hours. However, battery life can vary depending on use. They also have a quick charge that, according to the manufacturer, supplies four hours of playback after a 10-minute charge via their USB-C port. If you can't readily top up their battery life, you can use them passively with their included 1/8" TRRS audio cable. Unfortunately, they don't have any power-saving features to help conserve battery life when not in use.

The Skullcandy app is decent. Like most Skullcandy headphones with the brand's app support, these use Tile, which is handy if you misplace your cans. This feature helps you find them. You can use the app for pretty basic functions like checking the battery level or choosing 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 truly customizable equalizer, so you're relying on what the manufacturer prescribes.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo have satisfactory Bluetooth connectivity. They don't support multi-device pairing, which is disappointing. While latency depends on your device, connection strength, apps, and other variables, these exhibit enough of a lag that you'll notice lipsync mismatch with videos. It's not enough to make videos unwatchable, but if you watch a lot of movies and TV, you might prefer headphones with lower latency or adaptive codecs. If you primarily just listen to audio, this won't pose an issue.

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 only.

These Skullcandy Crusher Evo can connect to Bluetooth-enabled PCs with full audio and mic compatibility. You can also use their analog cable with full audio and mic compatibility. Turn off the haptic bass function if you use the mic, as there are issues of inconsistent mic quality when using the mic over a wired connection with the bass slider activated.

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. Make sure the haptic bass is disabled because it can cause issues with the mic when they're plugged in.

You can plug these headphones into your Xbox console's controller for full audio and microphone compatibility. Ensure that the haptic bass slider is off if you're using the mic because it can cause issues with the mic.