Audio company Bose announced on Wednesday that it is acquiring Skullcandy, the lifestyle brand best known for its bass-heavy headphones. Skullcandy will operate as a separate company within Bose's Premium Consumer Audio business and will remain headquartered in Park City, Utah.
The deal follows an existing working relationship. Over the past year, Bose has contributed its audio expertise to Skullcandy products through its Sound by Bose licensing program. Under that arrangement, Skullcandy designs the headphones and Bose handles work on the audio side. The collaboration began with the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC earbuds in 2025 and continued with the Crusher 1080 ANC headphones, released in July.
Speaking to WIRED in July about the partnership, Skullcandy CEO Brian Garofalow said the 23-year-old company's strength lies in building community and culture, particularly around board sports. The first Skullcandy product was designed on a ski chairlift. Garofalow also acknowledged that the company was not "the greatest at the engineering part of innovation with products."
The purchase is not Bose's first in the audio market, though it may be the most mainstream. In 2024, Bose bought McIntosh Group, the owner of luxury audio brands McIntosh Laboratory and Sonus Faber. Bose CEO Lila Snyder said the common thread is brand meaning. "What does the brand stand for? Does it have meaning for consumers? Is it relevant to a group of consumers that, frankly, we otherwise aren't reaching?" she told WIRED. She added that Skullcandy "gives us access to a customer base that we think we're largely missing with the Bose brand."
That reasoning underpins the decision to keep Skullcandy in Park City, which Snyder described as the epicenter of board sports culture. "We want to make sure we're right at the heart of it, as they always have been," she said. Skullcandy's products are also affordable compared with those of Bose and its other brands, allowing Bose to compete at both ends of the market.
The pairing may still look unusual. Bose pioneered active noise cancellation in headphones and continues to lead with products such as the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) and QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen). Skullcandy, by contrast, has often been the subject of jokes about audio quality, with a reputation for middling sound, bass-heavy tuning and a loud, bold look.
Recent collaborations have begun to shift that image. WIRED rated the Method 360 ANC earbuds 8 out of 10, citing good sound quality and noise cancellation for the price. Snyder said those earbuds and the Crusher headphones are only a starting point. "It's the beginning of what we think we can do together," she said.
What Skullcandy releases next, whether headphones or other products, remains to be seen. The open question is whether Bose's acoustic know-how can deliver the lasting image upgrade the lifestyle brand has been pursuing.
