You’re right—nothing this weight is ever perfectly comfortable, but it’s great that it’s better than you feared!
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I recently picked up a pair of V1’s and they have the pali pads on them stock, though my first pair of V1’s back in 2018 had pali pads stock also 
, (but some shipped with both those and the velour pads, the round ones.) The clamp of the V1 headband is still slightly more than the V2’s but it is slightly less than the V1’s I had in 2018, which were really clamp-y.
Had the ‘v1’ for 5 years, its topped lots of competition, although it can’t top stuff like the Auteur, HEK SE… For the money for open box SE’s (either) its a deal if you have the juice (2 wpc SS @ 50 ohms)+. The headband of the v2 does bite for me. Plus the whole stuck driver thing is a thing for the v2, but rare on the v1. The pali pads are not very good (DCA Ether Angled Lambskin tops the other 14 I’ve used), and of course the Arctic rear screens are much better than the stock. With the DCA pads and the minimum rear screens the horizontal soundstage is on some cuts about 145 degrees wde.
The stators are not as big as the OG HE-6 or HE-500, so the “fuzzor” mod isn’t such a requirement as on those. I still think the cup/driver is a little too live and needs damping (dynamat my choice), and of course PEQ for best performance.
Refurbs at $399, if you have the juice a tremendous can even vs todays choices under $1k,
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