Expert Review by Quest Soliman for Skullcandy Crusher 540 Active Wireless Over-Ear Headphones [0:53]

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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  I now have four pairs of these

  • Incentivized
  • Verified Purchaser
  • Owned for 1 week

  I own or have owned almost every popular pair of headphones on the market. These are by far my favorite. I’ve pitched them to family and friends and have “sold” a half dozen pairs. The most fun I have are in my group messages: I have friends sending links to songs I should listen to with the headphones and we all rave about how awesome they are. I’ll just list: If you’ve never heard crusher bass, it’s easy to describe but not believable until you actually experience it. I had 12 inch subs in my trunk. Factory-installed car stereos in the 90s were horrible. People replaced them, and some of us in our teenage years went overboard. We shook our cars apart. That is the closest thing I can think of to what this simulates. Maybe going to a crazy arena concert and standing near the front would be similar. The key to the above is that you don’t lose the detail in the song. It’s like you can hear everything even though the whole headphones are shaking. I only really need to leave the base slider at like 15% and it’s insane. The other thing that makes these perfect, in my opinion is that I dislike leather pads because they make my ears hot. These have the cool mesh with the soft gel memory foam underneath. It’s the same stuff that I swap out the leather on my other headphones for. The controls are super simple and intuitive. Pairing is super easy. The battery life is ridiculous. The only thing I wish is that it came in more colors. Otherwise, these are my favorite headphones of all time. The only weakness is that my AirPods Max are way better integrated with all my Apple stuff. When I want to watch Apple TV at night, I can just pop on my AirPods max and press one button and all the audio is there. As soon as I put them on, it’s connected to the phone that’s in my hand. If they could integrate these into the Apple ecosystem like Apple original which I know is impossible and add some colors, I’d buy them all. I love these headphones, in case you can’t tell. For the price, they are one of my favorite pieces of Tech of all time. Not joking

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  Posted 4 months ago by Wendal

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Best Bass headset

  • Incentivized
  • Verified Purchaser
  • Owned for 1 week

  Even thou there is no NC the fact that the bass is deep woth the haptic, covers the absence of NC…

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  Posted 4 months ago by Good

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Bass you can FEEL!

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  THIS… IS the Skullcandy CRUSHER 540 Active and truly one of the first headphones that I have worn that does something different, something unique to itself and does it REALLY well. Skullcandy has put what it calls ‘multi-sensory bass technology’ into the Crusher 540’s, which is actually a pair of rather powerful haptic motors in lieu of active noise cancelling. Lets open this box and see if haptic bass is a gimmick or worth the tradeoff for ANC. Opening the box, you are greeted with the Crusher 540’s, an aux cable, charging cable and cloth bag for the headphones. On the first feel, the Crusher 540’s have a nice plastic finish and a pretty lightweight build. This product is built for sweating/training, so I want you to keep that in mind as this isn’t an ‘ultra luxury’ headphone as it is meant to get dropped, sweaty and just plain dirty. Plopping the Crusher on my head, I actually really like the snug they give. I am also able to do a bench day without worrying about the crushers falling off my head, which is my biggest gripe with almost every other pair of headphones. My only real meh parts about the build are the buttons, they are easy to find and click but it isn't something that just comes naturally with it… but not so bad I am going to say never. Moving on, the ear cuffs are comfortable and there is a nice squishy rubber liner at the top of the head strap… but they do get somewhat warm and the ear cups do allow most noise to pass through. This is kind of a bummer as these headphones don’t have any Active Noise Cancelling so… I will probably be buying some replacement cups in the near future. I don’t find this to really be a deal breaker though as I tend to be a bit of a diva when it comes to headphone cups.. But I digress. I really do enjoy the build quality and color for the gym and the price point. Battery life is also great, Skullcandy claims 40 hours on battery and a ‘Rapid charge’ of 10 minutes via usb-c giving you 4 hours of playtime. Now the important part, the Crusher 540’s magic, or as Skullcandy calls it, ‘multi-sensory bass technology’ lies in two haptic motors that can change in intensity depending on how you move a slider located on the side of the left side of the headphones. I found that I preferred the slider at different points for different moods, but always trended on the 75-100%. That being said, the first time you wear the Crusher 540’s, expect the bass to make your ears tickle. Outside of the obviously fantastic bass, these headphones sound good! They aren’t anything too crazy, but for $200 I would say they punch above their weight. I will say though, some genres such as EDM, metal, rock and your really bass heavy music is nearing that 9/10 quality while anything that requires crisp highs and lows trends in the 7 or 8/10 such as rap and some pop/punk. I think that Active Noise Cancellation would really help out here as I don’t find the cuffs filtering out too much erroneous noise from the outside world. Something to note, Movies go CRAZY and the bass doesn’t really overcast audio or vocals. I started with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince as I knew this would really test the multimedia capabilities of the Crusher 540’s and MY OH MY are these not some of the best headphones I have ever tried on for entertainment and the haptic bass gives it that Imax feel. That being said, there is no adjustable EQ on the Crusher 540’s Skullcandy app, however, there are modes for music, movies and a podcast mode as well as a setting that ‘custom tailors’ the sound to your ears. I did find music and entertainment somewhat more crisp after setting the custom tuning. That is also about all that the app offers, so for me it was more of a one and done type scenario after I initially adjusted everything. Wrapping this up, these headphones are fantastic. I think that I would easily spend $50 more and get active noise cancelling, however, I wonder if the haptic system makes it challenging to introduce ANC in a very rogue environment. It is really hard to find many faults with the Crusher 540’s outside of the features that also make it more durable. I find that you either like the haptic speakers or you are probably not the target audience… and while I found it to really be a unique selling point. I think that the haptic feedback is something you should really try before you buy or take advantage of Best Buy's fantastic return policy so you aren’t stuck with the wrong headphones. Until next time :)

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  Posted 6 months ago by Exander