@Resolve has posted at length about how ear pads can affect the sound. This was brought home to me in spades recently.
The Abyss Diana V2 is a good sounding headphone to begin with. Recently picked up the latest version of the ear pads (V3 Lambskin). The difference in sound with the new ear pads was far more in the positive than I would have expected. It’s like getting a new upgraded headphone. Every aspect of the headphone sound improved. The upgrade gets the V2 much closer in performance to the newer more expensive Diana models. IMHO, it’s a much more noticeable upgrade than say exotic cables.
Agreed. Most people understate the effect of pad rolling and overstate the effect of swapping source gear. Of course it cuts both ways. I tried multiple pads on my Philphone with no success in an overall upgrade. Same for my Hifiman Mini Shangri-La until recently when I tried the Dekoni Elite Hybrids based on a Head-Fi recommendation. I haven’t found looking at before/after measurements to help with picking the right pad either.
My luck with pad rolling wasn’t good. I bought some Dekoni pads for the Focal Clear OG that turned it into a bloated midbass monster. I returned them to Amazon and bought the Focal replacements.
The LCD XC responds very well to pad change differences. I got the Dekoni choice suedes to fix the upper mids on the XC. You can see verses the leather the opening is quite smaller on the suedes, so that is what kind of helped smooth out the upper midrange glare these headphones can be known for .
I completely agree. Ear pads are one of those upgrades that people tend to overlook, but they can make a noticeable difference in both comfort and sound. Even replacing worn-out stock pads with fresh ones can bring the headphones back to how they originally sounded. It’s definitely worth considering before buying a new pair.
Personally I haven’t had the best experience with third party pads. Comfort tends to improve over stock or worn pads but sound tends to get worse.
The pads on my Sundara lost their shape after a couple of years. Tried some Defean hybrid pads and the sound was not great. Then tried the Voarmaks hybrid with cooling gel which are ok and much closer to the original sound. Also tried the Voarmaks Elite hybrid on my Ananda Nano and those didn’t work at all in terms of sound. Went back to the original pads. Currently waiting for some ZMF pads (quite expensive including shipping). Recently also tried some pads for the K371 to improve the seal. Picked some Brainwavz pads (the ones measured by Oratory) and total failure in terms of sound.
OTOH original pads tend to be quite expensive and harder to find/ship. You’d think eg pads by Sennheiser would be easy to find worldwide but the Mixing pads for the HD490 cannot be found locally in my country. Years ago I replaced the pads on my HD600 with the original ones and they ended up costing quite a bit. Hifiman sells replacement pads but eg the PaliPads for the Sundara cost about $100 including shipping and taxes which is absurd considering the headphones cost like $200 new here. The Serenity pads for the Nano cost $80 + shipping/taxes which ends up being like 30% of the price of a new pair of Nanos. It’s quite frustrating honestly.
Dekoni Pads for the most part are reasonable third party pads. For the Sennheiser HD 600 series, some of their pads are actually improvements from stock.
