Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2

The Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 arrive in a smartly designed cardboard box, complete with USB-C to A charging and mini jack cable, plus a sturdy hard case.

The Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 are neatly manufactured and give an impression of sturdiness. The matt black, retractable plastic ear cups resist sweaty or greasy fingerprints well. The ten-step ratchet for size adjustment works smoothly and retains the size once set.

The memory foam-filled ear pads have been enlarged compared to their predecessor and comfortably enclose your ear. Users with larger ears and those who wear glasses should have no problems with the padding. The pads themselves are replaceable but extremely fiddly to fit. During our test, the memory foam slipped a bit, causing wrinkles to form in the faux leather.

The headband is made of memory foam covered with dark grey fabric. Thanks to a slight notch in the middle, pressure on the head is reduced. However, the contact pressure could have been a little lower for our taste.

Comparison: Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 Vs. Crusher ANC 1

Compared to the previous model, lots has changed with the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2: The ear pads are now slightly larger, the headband is made of fabric with a smaller notch, and the left ear cup no longer reacts to touch controls. With the Crusher ANC 2, everything is controlled by buttons on the headphones or by app.

The technology has also been revised: while the hearing test and personalisation on the previous model came from the Swedish company audiodo, Skullcandy now use the Berlin-based Mimi Hearing Technologies, who also customise the sound of Beyerdynamic and Nothing headphones.

Battery performance has been improved so that the new model can last for about 50 hours with ANC. Playback time after fast charging increases from three to four hours.

Controlling the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2

For controls, this model has an orange multifunction button on the left side of the ear cup, and this handles pairing as well as on/off. Directly below is a lightly ratched rotary control that allows you to smoothly fade in the so-called “Sensory Bass” – but more on that later.

On the right, you will find three buttons for controlling the volume, playback and calls. Below that, a slider switches between ANC, transparency mode and all off.

Bluetooth & Pairing

The Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 uses Bluetooth version 5.2 and the SBC and AAC codecs. Higher-quality codecs such as aptX or even LDAC are missing.

Pairing is quick, and the Crusher ANC 2 can connect to two devices (Multipoint) at the same time, although only one of them can take over media playback. In practice, this works very well, although the headphones can only be connected to the Skullcandy iQ app on one device at a time. The wireless link was extremely stable and only broke down after about 50 metres in open space.

Skull iQ App

The smartly designed app (iOS, Android) offers many options for customising the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2. Not only can you switch on voice control (“Hey Skullcandy, execute command XY”), the control buttons on the headphone pods can also be expanded to include two- and three-push buttons. Functions include track jumps, shortcuts that use the Crusher ANC 2 as a photo shutter release and Spotify shortcuts, so there’s nothing left to be desired. used to create an individual listening profile can be done here, as can setting up a link to the Tile Find app. A pre-set EQ including a 5-band equaliser is also available, as is the option to initiate firmware updates, change the language or deactivate/activate multipoint pairing.

How good are the ANC and transparency mode on the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2?

The adjustable active noise cancelling (ANC) works primarily in the low frequencies. From the mid-range onwards, the effectiveness decreases rapidly. So, for instance, background noise is deprived of its grounding “at the bottom”, while high-frequency sound components reach the ears in a slightly softened form. Put this together with their passive noise suppression, and the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 only rank in the mid-range. The Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 does not come close to the wide range cancellation that the Sony WH-1000XM5, Bose Headphones 700 or Apple AirPods Max are capable of.

This also applies to the transparency mode, which Skullcandy calls “wake mode” in the app and “attention mode” via voice announcement in the headphones. This only slightly amplifies the environment, if at all, so that although perception is improved, it is not particularly pronounced. The competitors mentioned above are also better at this.

However, the noise floor has improved considerably compared to the previous model. While we had a few complaints about it back then, the ANC 2 keeps it within reasonable limits. During musical pauses, the slight noise is not noticeable in a negative way, and during media playback, it is not worth mentioning.

How does the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 sound?

The sound of the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 also needs to be carefully evaluated. This is because these headphones change their sound depending on whether they are used without or with personalised listening profiles.

Via Bluetooth with deactivated ANC, without a listening profile and a subwoofer, the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 had a modern tuning with a bass-driven, warm base note. The mids seemed slightly recessed, as did the highs; this sound tuning did not “pierce” the ears. It ensured that the ears did not tire quickly, but – like with the previous version – they sometimes swallow up crisp transients when listening to material rich in overtones.

When the listening profile was activated, the sound changed. This depended on the previously created tests and, in my case, made the treble reproduction more lively. Here, however, I noticed a clear difference between use with Apple and Google smartphones: If I added the proportion of this auditory adjustment on the Google Pixel 6a via the app using the slider, I noticed a kind of flanger effect from about the 25 per cent slider position, which became stronger as the intensity level increased. This may be fine for dense pop songs but sounded very unnatural for more minimal pieces (e.g. Amber Rubarth “Strive”) and quiet passages. In contrast, when the Crusher ANC 2 played through an iPhone 13 mini, my individual listening profile sounded as it should.

Finally, the sensory bass, as well as ANC and transparency mode, remained active, in contrast to the previous model sound-wise, we could hardly detect any noteworthy differences.

The sensory bass of the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2

The real highlight of the Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 is the sensory bass. It is activated via app or rotary control and can be turned up smoothly.

Our playlist contains all kinds of bass bombs (Moderat, Missy Elliot) that, thanks to the Crusher ANC 2, mutated into booming monsters. This was quite fun, as older groovy numbers, in particular, can benefit from this and (can) sound more modern and also somehow cooler. If the whole thing was overdone, the result was a spongy frequency image that just swallowed up nuances. But in contrast to the previous model, these headphones managed to convert the energy of the bass range better so that the mids were no longer affected quite so much.

The subwoofer was fun when gaming on the PlayStation as well as when watching action-packed blockbusters: explosions or film scores created a cinematic feeling thanks to the sensory bass!