Can Bose help Skullcandy shake its reputation as a blockbuster?

Headphones company Skullcandy has a reputation for lackluster sound quality. Over the past year or so, she’s been on a mission to improve that reputation.

Her efforts began with A Boss Partnership in 2025 and release Skullcandy 360 ANC methoda pair for $130 Wireless earbuds Which has surprisingly good sound quality and noise cancellation for the money.

Next on the upgrade list are Skullcandy’s infamous Crusher headphones. These wireless cans have been around for over a decade, and are known for allowing users to turn up the bass vibrations using the actual thumb wheel located on the ear cup. Spin that wheel all the way, and the crushers will vibrate against your skull, thanks to the special driver design.

The company announced a new pair, the Crusher 1080 ANC, during an event in New York City on Wednesday evening. They are on sale now.

Headphones emulate the feel of an incredible subwoofer — as if you’re in the front row of a concert — while typically sacrificing the mids and highs. But that’s what Skullcandy wants to correct with the new headphones, once again by relying heavily on Bose’s audio expertise.

The new Crusher headphones are the next step in Skullcandy’s brand reinvention efforts.

Courtesy of Skullcandy

Skullcandy She likes to announce that her first product was born on a ski lift in 2003 near its headquarters in Park City, Utah. Since then, the company has catered specifically to the sports community.

“From snowboarders to snowboarders,” Brian Garofalo, CEO of Skullcandy, tells WIRED. Although private equity firm Mill Road Capital now owns the company, Skullcandy is still viewed more as a lifestyle brand than an audio company with serious segments for audiophiles.

“We’ve been really great at building and nurturing community and helping move cultures forward — not the best at the engineering part of innovating with products,” Garofalo says. “So we’ve really been honing our skills in the last few years.”

Garofalow says it was an engineering challenge to pair Crusher’s bass-boosting technology with noise cancellation. He says the team worked with Bose engineers to separate the crusher from the rest of the voice coil so the low end remains alone. In theory, this means that when you increase the bass effect with the dial, “the mids and highs are still very sharp, compared to the past, when they tended to get muddy,” Garofalo says.

the Audio from Boss The software adds three more improvements to Skullcandy’s new Crusher headphones: Bose’s noise-canceling cutouts, which should work well even if you have the bass turned up to 11; Bose Spatial Sound Coil for a surround-sound-like feel; And a six-microphone array for Bose call quality Come to be known for.