Skullcandy Crusher Wireless Over-Ear Sealed Headphones with Haptic Bass Drivers Measurements

Measurements Wired Haptic Off
Click on graphs image to download .pdf for closer inspection.

Had a little trouble with my Bluetooth transmitter so no wireless measurements, sorry about that. Like many wireless cans they did sound virtually identical in wired vs. Bluetooth operation.

In the plots above with the haptic transducer off you can see that the bass is elevated by around 10dB over its baseline level (at 600Hz), and the emphasis extends well into the midrange. This is an excessive bass response. You can also see that they are extremely sensitive below 60Hz to the fit on the ear with changes in position. I tried very hard to get a consistant seal, but they just wouldn't cooperate, so I let the measurements reflect the nature of the headphones.

Above 600Hz the rise to the 3.3kHz peak has about the right shape, but the level at 3.3kHz is about 15dB, which is 2-3dB too high. Response subsequent to the peak initially falls off nicely but then gets stuck at a level that's about 5dB too high at 10kHz.

30Hz square wave is a rather humped up affair due to the broad and somewhat excessive bass boost. A quick glance at the THD in the bass and you'll see that the quality of bass response is somewhat poor.

300Hz square wave is a bit too spiky initially due to the somewhat hot treble response, and the subsequent low level then upward tilt indicates the imbalance between the midrange and bass response.

The impulse response is not bad and tells me they're not too far off with these cans. I have to say I though they sounded a little better than the measurements might indicate.

Distortion plots are pretty miserable though. Power handling is quite poor, distortion goes up dramatically from 90dB to 100dB. And the bass distortion is quite bad.

The impedance plot shows a mild primary resonance hump in the bass at about 30Hz, watch it move as we add in the haptic driver.

Isolation is quite good for a headphone of this type.

Measurements Wired Haptic 30%

Click on graphs image to download .pdf for closer inspection.

High frequencies are largely unchanged as we add in the haptic driver so I'll focus on the things that do change as we increase its contribution.

The above plot is with the adjustment slider at 30%. Note bass response is still quite variable with headphone position changes. The large fearture at 50Hz is the haptic driver going through its high-Q resonance. Note that the level below 50Hz does seem to increase with the haptic driver extending sub-bass response.

30Hz square wave shape is a bit odd, but better than without. Also distortion, though still weird, does decrease slightly. This is an indicator of why I think this idea might have some merit with a much improved haptic driver.

Impedance plot does show the resonance hump now moving up to 50Hz with the reactive contribution of the haptic driver.

Measurements Wired Haptic 100%

Click on graphs image to download .pdf for closer inspection.

Yowza! Bass goes through the roof. A huge spike in impedance appears at 50Hz due to the haptic driver's high-Q resonance. Distortion goes through the roof. In my book there's simply no need to have this amount of bass or vibration.

Oh well.

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