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Skullcandy Crusher 1080 ANC
Pros & Cons
- Premium build quality with comfortable ear pads
- Powerful bass with haptic feedback
- Bose-powered noise canceling and Sound by Bose tuning
- Improved sound quality from previous Crusher models, with better clarity and more balanced audio
- Top-tier voice calling performance
- Good noise canceling
- Strong battery life
- Fairly heavy and somewhat pricey
- No support for AptX or LDAC audio codecs
- Sound distorts with Crusher bass more fully engaged
I was talking to a Bose rep at the launch event for Skullcandy’s new $280 Crusher 1080 ANC headphones, and he hinted that some Bose engineers were a little hesitant to work on one of Skullcandy’s Crusher products. The headphones are known for their head-rattling bass that you can literally feel thanks to a haptic feedback engine. “We have a lot of people at Bose who consider themselves audiophiles,” he said.
The Crusher 1080 ANC, which has Sound by Bose and a more premium design than previous Crusher models, certainly isn’t an audiophile headphone. But it’s the most respectable-sounding Crusher to date, and its noise-canceling and voice calling performance have also been leveled up as a result of the Bose partnership. (Note that the new, step-down $210 Crusher 720 ANC, which I haven’t tried, don’t include Sound by Bose.)
Read more: Best Headphones of 2026
Crusher 1080 ANC design
The first thing you notice about the headphones is that they feel substantial — perhaps even a little too substantial for some folks’ tastes. They weigh in at 374.2 grams (13.2 ounces). “This design is engineered to balance the heavy sensory bass tech and active noise-canceling hardware comfortably on the head,” Skullcandy’s marketing materials state. By comparison, that puts them in the same weight class as the 386.2-gram Apple AirPods Max, which are among the heavier headphones out there.
That said, the Crusher 1080 ANC headphones do have thick, cushy ear pads and fit my head comfortably. They also fold up and fold flat to fit into a well-designed canvas carrying pouch with a soft lining that I actually prefer to a hard case. The headphones are mostly plastic, but the headband is reinforced with metal.
On each earcup, you’ll find two sets of physical buttons. Power, volume and track playback controls are on the right earcup, while there’s a button for toggling between noise canceling and StayAware transparency modes on the left earcup. You’ll also find Skullcandy’s signature Crusher slider to dial up the bass to levels you can literally feel.
Crusher 1080 ANC features
When it comes to features, Skullcandy is touting a trio of Bose “firsts” for a non-Bose headphone, including its QuietControl ANC, TrueSpatial audio with head tracking and WaveForm audio engine. Equipped with six microphones total — three in each earcup — the headphones also have Bose’s SpeechClarity voice pickup to help improve voice calling performance (more on that in a minute).
Onboard wear-detection sensors pause your music when you take the headphones off and resume playback when you put them back on. In the mobile app, you’ll find equalizer settings, a hearing-test-based personal sound option, a low-latency setting for video watching and gaming and a sidetone setting to hear your voice in the headphones during calls to adjust the loudness. The Crusher 1080 ANC uses Bluetooth 5.3, which includes support for LE Audio, Auracast and multipoint pairing to connect to two devices at the same time.
Note that many of the latest headphones use Bluetooth 6.0. And some, including Sony’s WH-1000XM6 and Apple’s AirPods Max 2, offer a Speak-To-Chat mode (Apple calls it Conversation Awareness) that automatically lowers the volume of your audio and puts the headphones into transparency mode when you start talking, so you can have a conversation without taking the headphones off.
The headphones support the staple Bluetooth audio codecs SBC and AAC, but not Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive or Sony’s LDAC codecs that claim higher fidelity with wireless streaming services such as Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal and Amazon Music with “lossless” music streaming options. Like with a lot of over-ear wireless headphones these days, battery life is strong: The Crusher 1080 ANCs are rated for up to 50 hours of listening time with noise canceling on at moderate volume levels and up to 60 hours with noise canceling off.
Crusher 1080 ANC noise-canceling and voice calling performance
As noted, Bose’s QuietControl ANC is behind the headphones’ noise canceling. I wouldn’t say it’s at the top-tier level of the noise-canceling you get with Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra (2nd-gen) headphones, but it’s in the B-plus-to-A-minus range. The same Bose rep I spoke with at the launch event told me the Crusher’s bass engine presented some engineering challenges for noise-canceling performance, which isn’t surprising. But the ANC is clearly a step-up from Skullcandy’s earlier Crusher 2 ANC headphones.
I was more impressed with the voice calling performance. Callers I spoke with from the noisy streets of New York said they heard almost no background noise and that my voice came across sounding clear with virtually no digital-processing glitches. The headphones did a good job of suppressing wind and traffic noise. Callers said they could occasionally hear some muffled voices of passersby and sirens, but otherwise, they thought I could be talking to them from a room indoors.
Crusher 1080 ANC sound quality
Skullcandy says the Crusher 1080 ANC’s Crusher drivers have been “redesigned to feature a live-edge design that uses a stiffer material to allow for more pistonic movement of the diaphragm, which decreases harmonic breakups.” Unlike Skullcandy’s Method 360 ANC earbuds, which were infused with Bose hardware and software, the Crusher 1080 ANCs incorporate only Bose software and tuning. The drivers were designed by Skullcandy.
It’s a little tricky to evaluate these headphones from a sound quality perspective because of how quickly you can change their sound profile with the bass slider. For starters, it helps to do the personal sound calibration in the Skullcandy companion app. You can also play around with the equalizer settings. You still end up with a bass-forward sound that’s on the warmer side, but you can get to a more balanced sound with better clarity with the bass slider set at zero. That said, if you’re buying these headphones, you’re buying them for the bass, and engaging the slider is what makes the listening experience unique. I usually listened with the slider at about 20%-25% up to get that extra bass punch that I could feel without giving up too much clarity.
“While the Crusher bass has always been adjustable, like any other bass-heavy product, when you crank it to the top, you can lose some audio quality,” Skullcandy says, and when you push that slider up to its max level, things get pretty muddy. It’s as if you’re standing right next to a huge tower speaker at a concert, and depending on the volume level, it may not be great for your ear health.
As a “pro tip” for the most immersive experience, Skullcandy suggests that you turn the ANC On, jack up the Crusher slider to the max level and set the volume at 65% or higher with TrueSpatial on. That combo certainly creates a visceral experience and makes you feel like you’re at a live concert, particularly if you’re listening to a live concert track.
Everyone has different levels of bass they can handle, particularly for longer listening sessions, so you’ll need to play around with the settings to get to what you’re comfortable with. But it can be fun to find tracks where the Crusher enhances the listening experience. EDM and hip hop are good places to start, but anything with a present bass line can be weirdly invigorating — Nirvana’s Lithium, Smells Like Teen Spirit or All Apologies, for example. The headphones are better suited to rock tracks than you’d think.
There’s a bit of novelty to the whole experience — and it’s certainly not for everyone. But the good news is that you can always opt for short bursts of Crusher and go back to the default sound, which is a nice upgrade over previous Crusher headphones’ default sound (by that I mean the sound without the slider engaged).
In 2024, I reviewed Sony’s ULT Wear headphones, the successor to Sony’s WH-XB910N. They’re part of Sony’s ExtraBass line and well-liked by folks who appreciate bass-forward headphones, but at a more affordable price than its flagship WH-1000X series headphones. Some people found themselves comparing that Sony model to Skullcandy’s Crusher ANC 2, and will likely do the same with the newer Crusher 1080 ANC (though I expect Sony will upgrade the ULT Wear either this year or next).
The Sony ULT Wear are lighter headphones, but they don’t have the more premium build quality of the Crusher 1080 ANC, which seem sturdier overall. I had a hard time listening to the ULT Wear with the ULT (extra bass) button engaged, as the bass got a little too boomy. The Crusher 1080 ANC certainly distorts with the bass slider at its higher setting, but it’s a more fun bass-heavy headphone than the Sony ULT Wear because of how much bass energy there is. It also sounds better overall.
I wasn’t convinced that the Crusher 1080 ANCs sound any better in the TrueSpatial mode (still or motion). They may be better for movie watching, but they didn’t really add anything for me while listening to music, and I found myself mostly keeping the extra bass off. (I’ll continue evaluating the headphones and update this review if I end up feeling differently. Sometimes, firmware updates can lead to improvements.)
Crusher 1080 ANC final thoughts
If you’re a fan of Skullcandy Crusher headphones or bass-heavy headphones in general, I can’t imagine you’ll be disappointed with the new Crusher 1080 ANCs. While still delivering head-rattling bass you can feel, not only is the sound quality noticeably improved from the Crusher 2 ANC, but it offers better noise-canceling performance and top-notch voice calling performance with a fairly robust feature set.
