The Skullcandy Hesh Evo is a cool-looking pair of over-ear wireless headphones. For $99.99, you get a supremely comfortable fit and a bass-forward experience, but not much else. There’s no app, no active noise cancellation, no exercise-focused features…these are just wireless headphones, plain and simple. That’s OK with us, but the audio becomes the sole focus, and the audio here is decent, but never wonderful. There’s actually less bass depth than you might expect from Skullcandy, as well as less crispness and definition in the high-mids than there could be. By no means do these headphones sound bad, but there’s nothing here that stands out in a field with better options, either in the features department or the audio performance realm.
Few Embellishments
The Hesh Evo headphones have a circumaural (over-ear) design, and are available in black, blue/white, or gray models. The earpads and underside of the headband are thoroughly cushioned with memory foam lined with a leather-like material. The fit is exceptionally comfortable and secure, even over long listening sessions.
Along the right earcup’s side panel, there’s a control strip with a central multifunction button that handles playback, call management, and voice assistants, and plus/minus buttons for volume and track navigation. We’re not fans of combining volume and track navigation on the same button, as it’s too easy to accidentally skip a track when you mean to adjust the volume. The multifunction button is also the power button (hold it for two seconds to power down), and there’s a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button on the panel, as well.
Skullcandy includes one of the shorter charging cables we’ve seen, of the USB-C-to-USB-A variety. The cable connects to a USB-C port on the right earcup’s side panel, where there’s also a jack for the included audio cable, for passive listening. Skullcandy estimates battery life to be roughly 36 hours, but your results will vary with your volume levels.
The headphones have Tile built in, so you can use the Tile app to locate them if they’re hidden nearby.
Internally, 40mm drivers deliver a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz. The headphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and support the SBC Bluetooth codec, but not AAC or AptX.
What’s missing? Skullcandy’s site says the headphones ship with a travel bag, but we didn’t receive one. Also, an app with some customizable EQ would be a helpful inclusion—one that we don’t necessarily expect at this price, but it’s not unheard of.
Hesh Evo Audio Performance
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the headphones deliver powerful low-frequency response. At top, unwise listening levels, they bring serious thump without distorting, and at more moderate volume levels, the lows are still quite present on this bass-heavy track.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Hesh Evo’s general sound signature. The drums on this track can get an overly thunderous feel to them through bass-forward headphones, but here the drums sound full and big, without seeming overly boosted. Callahan’s baritone vocals get some added richness in the low-mids, but it’s paired with a relatively crisp high-mid delivery that keeps things defined. The highs sound dialed up, as the background tape hiss takes a big step forward, while the higher-register percussive hits and acoustic strums are notably bright. In other words, we have a sculpted sound signature, with rich lows and bright highs. Generally speaking, it provides solid balance, but this isn’t a sound signature for purists looking for an accurate listen, nor is it for bass lovers.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence to retain its punchiness in the mix, though the attack is a little dulled. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with solid depth, but nothing that sounds like a subwoofer is hidden inside the headphones. The highs take a step forward yet again; we wish the high-mids took a step forward as well, as it would provide a tad more detail. The vocals on this track are delivered with solid clarity regardless, and the dialed-back high-mids means there’s no added sibilance.
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Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound a bit scooped out. There’s plenty of highs and of low-mid richness, but the mids and high-mids sound a bit restrained.
The mic offers strong intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could easily understand every word we recorded. There wasn’t much Bluetooth distortion in the mix, while the mic signal was strong and even provided a little bit of low-frequency response.
Unobjectionable, But Unexciting
When we come across a pair of headphones like the Skullcandy Hesh Evo, it feels like a trip down memory lane—these are just wireless headphones, period. That’s refreshing on one hand, but it also means that they need to sound quite good in order to compete with similarly priced options that might offer a little more in the way of features. The headphones are comfortable, and the drivers deliver good—not great—audio. Around the $100 mark, we’re bigger fans of the Jabra Elite 45h and the Sennheiser HD 450BT, or for less, the Sennheiser HD 250BT. All three pairs feature adjustable EQ and better audio performance, showing that sometimes more is more.
