Skullcandy Crusher Wireless Headphones: Vibrate my head!

Hello. Today I would like to review for you the Skullcandy Crusher Wireless headphones.

This is one of my favorite Bluetooth headsets, and in just a second I'll tell you what makes these headphones so great.

I first heard about this pair of headphones early last fall. Their major selling points were the haptic bass you can feel, and a 40-hour battery life, which in my opinion, in a $200 headset, is a bit crazy, but nevertheless, I've tested it and the battery life is as advertised.

There's not much that comes in the package this headset comes in. There's a box, and inside you'll find the manual and other assorted paperwork, as well as the carrying case for the headphones. They do fold up for easy packing, and the carrying pouch has a couple of compartments for the 3.5 MM cable and the micro USB cable to charge the headphones.

Now, let's get to the meat of this review, the headphones themselves. When you're wearing the headphones properly, the cable should go on the left earcup. Also on the left earcup are the haptic bass slider, which I'll discuss in just a moment, and the micro USB charging slot. Other than that there's not much on the left earcup.

On the right earcup there are three buttons, a button shaped like a minus sign, (if any of you are aware of what the minus sign looks like in Braille), which will turn the headphones down, and if held skip back a track. After that there is a circular button which, when held, turns the headphones on and puts them into pairing mode.

There are voice prompts on this headset and the voice isn't terrible, and it simply tells you when it's turned on and says "connected" or "pairing" to indicate that it's ready to be connected to a device. You can also double-tap the circular button to bring up Siri. The button above this is a button that is shaped kind of like a plus symbol. This button turns up the volume and, if held, skips forward a track.

The headset is pretty basic, but now we come to the gimic with this particular set. If you are someone who is into extreme bass, or you like playing games or watching movies with a lot of action, you're going to love this headset. Skullcandy has built this pair of headphones in such a way as to allow for them to install a special device in the headphones that makes the bass feelable. You don't hear it as much as feel the phones vibrate on top of your head. If you've never experienced that feeling before it is a little bit strange, but it is so awesome.

The slider on the left side adjusts the bass output. All the way down, the headphones just sound normal. There are a nice amount of mids and highs, and even a nice amount of hearable bass. Start playing with the slider however, and things change. The bass becomes deeper, and because there is a driver that specifically handles the bass the other frequencies don't start sounding muddy. Even for the most avid bass lovers I would recommend putting the slider at about the halfway mark. There is no way to actually know, but if you can take two fingers on one hand and position the slider in-between them and then move them so they meet on the slider, this should give you a good estimate.

Now, a few caviots. The sound stage is not as good on these headphones as some others. There is decent stereo separation, and it works well, but I would not recommend these headphones for serious listening to good classical music. These are not audiofile headphones. They're just a nice pair of headphones to have around when you really want to feel the bass pound and get lost in it for a while. Still, overall, I'd say buy this headset. The buttons feel different tactilly so once you learn what they are it'll be a sinch to operate. The bass slider is fun to play with at first and once you've found a comfortable listening level you can just leave it there and your tracks will always sound awesome, and I can't talk enough about the battery life. It's double a lot of the compettitors, especially models like the Bose QC-35.

For $200, I'd say you're getting a bargain, and they seem to be on sale at Amazon fairly often, so if you don't feel like spending $200 or want to wait for a better offer that is always a possibility.