Skullcandy Crusher Evo

The Crusher Evo is a bass monster with a hilarious and awesome haptic slider that you'll either love or hate. The battery life is best-in-class at 40 hours, but the call quality is terrible. If you want to feel your music physically and can find them for around $100, they're an absolute blast.

The 40mm drivers here are tuned for one thing: fun. The sound profile is bass-forward and energetic, landing in the 81st percentile for sound, which is impressive for a headphone this focused on low-end. But that focus comes at a cost. The mids and highs are just okay, and the call quality is a real weak spot, scoring a rough 38.1 out of 100. The battery is a standout, though, hitting the 86th percentile with a massive 40 hours of playback. A quick 10-minute charge gets you 4 hours, which is perfect for when you forget to plug them in. The build quality is also a pleasant surprise, ranking in the 89th percentile, and the Tile tracking built in is a genuinely smart feature for something you might toss in a gym bag.

Stacked against the competition, the Crusher Evo is in a weird but fun lane. The Sony ULT WEAR is its most direct rival, also focusing on a big bass button, but it adds proper ANC and a more refined overall sound. The Soundcore Life Q20 is the budget king here, offering decent ANC and sound for way less money, but it can't touch the Skullcandy's physical bass gimmick. On the higher end, the Sennheiser MOMENTUM 4 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra are in a completely different league for sound quality and noise cancellation, but they also cost significantly more and won't rattle your skull. The Skullcandy wins on sheer, unadulterated bass fun, but loses on almost every other technical front.

Pricing is a bit of a rollercoaster, with a spread from $100 to $210 across different vendors. At the lower end of that range, especially for a renewed model, these are a steal for bass lovers. You're getting a unique, fun feature set and fantastic battery life for the price of a boring pair of budget headphones. At the full $210, it's a tougher sell, as you're creeping into territory occupied by more well-rounded competitors with better sound and ANC. If you can snag them closer to $100, the value proposition is hard to beat.

The Skullcandy Crusher Evo is basically a bass delivery system that happens to sit on your ears. It's not trying to be a neutral, reference headphone for studio work, and it doesn't care. The whole point is the adjustable sensory bass slider, which can go from a gentle rumble to a genuinely skull-shaking vibration that feels like a subwoofer strapped to your head. If that sounds like a good time, you're the target audience. If you just cringed, you can probably stop reading now.

If you need a headset for work calls or gaming chat, look elsewhere because the microphone is a letdown. Similarly, if you want a balanced, detailed sound for all genres of music, the overwhelming bass will just annoy you. Anyone who needs effective noise cancellation for a commute or office should also skip these, as the passive isolation isn't up to the task.

Buy the Skullcandy Crusher Evo if your primary goal is to feel your music in your bones. It's a one-trick pony, but it's a really, really fun trick. It's perfect for bass-heavy genres like hip-hop, EDM, and action movies, and the battery life means you can rattle your brain for days on end. Just don't expect it to be a great all-rounder for calls or critical listening. This is a pure entertainment device, and it excels at that.