Brushing up on our tech once more, Skullcandy made an appearance at this year's VRLA in a very welcoming way. Coupled with the Gear VR and their new Audioscape VR software, we got to try their comfy new headsets. First impressions of the new VRA Crusher headset were that it was lightweight, comfortable, but packed one massive bass response. Trying out the Oculus app named Audioscape, we used the Gear VR to point anywhere in our virtual reality soundscape to create melodies and bass ripples.
The CEO of Skullcandy, Hoby Darling, commented on the new Crusher line of headsets: "In our day-to-day lives, all the senses combine to create a meaningful or memorable experience. There’s been remarkable progress with accessibility of hardware, software and content creation tools, but the majority of these advancements have been focused on elevating the visual VR experience. We’re here because we want to be catalysts for progressing the virtual reality audio, which we believe is an essential part of having a true VR experience."
The Crusher VRA headset holds stereo haptic bass drivers that are designed to aurally point towards something in the VR landscape. We're curious of how that functions beyond normal surround sound inside of a headset driver, but we were satisfied enough with the bass response that it wasn't on our minds at the time of testing. Regardless, we'd like to do a side-by-side comparison of what one company deems as "surround sound" vs. what Skullcandy offers with their VRA headset.
The true test of their hardware hit when we were invited to a mini-rave on the VRLA floor. Armed with bass-responsive backpacks, we watched as a DJ pounded out tunes to the Skullcandy headsets nearby. An impressive show to say the least. I do enjoy myself some bluetooth headphones, and the Crusher headset had a powerful response, but we're not going all-in yet with our bets until we're able to get our hands on a model to test it out fully. For now, the Crusher features three separate models, standard wired, wireless, and the VRA model, the model we had the chance to demo. We're gunning for the VRA model. For more information, check out the official site.