I've commited a crime... knifed the K701's.

Yes, I did it. In a fit of frustration after weeks of dealing with the retarded centre bump on the headband of the K701, I finally decided to do the unthinkable and put knife on the K701's. I had tried to soften the headband, put a sleep mask under the headband for padding, tie it up with zip ties, and every other known mods to men for K701 headband, but they just didn't do anything long term at all. I figured that I liked these quite a lot and positive that I would never sell it to anyone in the future, so there was no harm in removing the bumps for the sake of comfort.

With much nervousness, I stabbed the center bump from the sides with my swiss army knife, kind of getting a sadistic joy out of finally putting the much hated center bump out of misery. As I tore through the insides, I noticed that these were indeed not all leather; the inside is reinforced with a (not really soft) baby bluish sponge material that was supposed to provide some kind of padding. Once I cut open the sides, the rest of the bump tore off pretty easily. Now, I initially figured to just remove the center bump, and leave the rest as it is, but behold; that only created two additional pressure points, and it simply looked horrible with just the center one missing. So I went ahead and removed ALL of the bumps, having some trouble with the corner ones whch happens to be reinforced pretty well.

Some afterthoughts:

- WHOAMG... the comfort. With the bumps now gone, I can finally be comfortable wearing these for hours. The absence of the middle bump was immediately noticeable, and a very welcome change.

- The headband itself still reinforces some pressure, but since that part is made of REAL leather, it'll surely soften up and break in.

- The bumps, no matter how much they are used, will never "break in" since they're made of the foam material inside. So anyone who is hoping for them to soften up over time, It'll just not happen.

- Here's another plus after doing this "mod": The big headband "pins" at the ends are no longer securely reinforced and you will be able to tilt the headband forwards and backwards as you see fit. So I can now tilt them relative to the position on the head and achieve even more comfort.

- The bottom honestly doesn't look THAT bad. It leaves a "grill" type mark where the bumps used to be so it actually looks pretty interesting. Besides, it's not like you are going to see it when you wear it or anything.

Overall, I'm very content with my decision to kill off the headband bumps. It's finally given me the degree of comfort I need and lets face it... comfort is an integral part of headphone-wearing experience. I'd imagine this is how K601's feel, since they have identical design aside from the retardo bumps. If anyone out there is confident enough to remove the bumps and do not plan on selling the K701 in the future, I recommend it.

Any comments and suggestions on what else to do with it (maybe additional foams on the bottom of the headband?) would be welcome. If any of you would like pics, I can provide that a bit later as well.

Alright, here we go.



The Overall Look (of how it should have been in the first place IMO)



The view of the headband after the surgery.



Closer view. Planning to take those black leather bits off eventually (glued on pretty hard).



The remains of the "Tumor". HAHAHAHAHAHA DIE DIE DIE DIE *ahem*....



As you see, the bumps have these baby blue foams that ultimately don't bring you any comfort.



The back of the bumps. The foams are attached to this black leather strip which is then glued on to the headband.


And there you have it. Yes, it looks horrible but the comfort it brings is more than worth it. I'd obviously won't suggest this to anyone who may sell the K701 in the future as this would have any kind of resale value to nosedive, but for those who like them and have trouble with the bump comfort, give it a try (if you dare).

Over the bumps you mean? I originally thought about the beyer headband pad from another recommendation, but I'd imagine the bumps would still put pressure on the head through the pads. But it's definitely something I will consider now that the bumps are gone (how do they go on anyway? Adhesive?).

While the covering is leather (pleather? Did not feel like real leather) and may soften up, I can't really see how the foam would soften up over time even if I did tried to soften it up (I actually bought it used here and it came already softened up a lot). Trust me, I've tried everything until I resorted to this method. Glove oil, padding, sponge, you name it... the foam is actually of a pretty hard variety and doesn't really provide any comfort, especially when you have a pointy head like me and that bump literally drives into top of your skull.