ATH-M50 Anyone Else Experience This?

I try my best to explain this. When I first got my ATH-M50's they sounded nice and what I expected. Over the few months that I've had them I noticed the punchy bass seemed less pronounced and the highs seem more pronounced (which these absolutely don't need). The sound was actually starting to get a slightly fatiguing.

A week or two ago a fitted a pair or cut socks as covers so they wouldn't get hot. An inadvertent benefit to this was that it seemed to squeeze the earpad cushions and make them a little puffier. This immediately seemed to fix the bass/high problem and actually seemed to sound better than when I first got them. With a few weeks of use now with the sock covers on, the pads seem to be compressing again and the sound seems to be slowly degrading again

So from my inexperienced analysis, it seems the padding in the earphones are getting compressed with use and it is affecting the sound quality for the worse. Has anyone else experienced this? What should I do about it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dennito 

Buy new ear pads?
 

 

I thought about this but I hear so many conflicting things about other manufacturers pads on the M50 that I don't really want to start experimenting and spend more money on earpads than the headphones are worth.

I did just line the inside with cotton balls and this has restored it to the original great sound. I think I see why Neil Pert uses the double earpad mod. I just might do this to see how it sounds. I'm surprised some enterprising person hasn't came out with the perfect replacement pad for the M50.

So has anyone else done the cotton ball mod and noticed a BIG difference? I'm currently looking for a more permanent material besides cotton balks. OR, a replacement pad (dt250?) that has the height required for the bass. I tried a pair of Shure 840 pads and they are too shallow to keep the deep bass.  I'll take pic if anyone wants to see. 

I decided to play around with a few other options besides the cotton balls. I had a length of 3/8 supple nylon cord laying around so I tried that first. Fit was great but the highs were a little harsh. Bass was fine. I then found a piece of 3/4in thick foam. I traced around one of the stock earpads, cut out most of the center and it sounds absolutely great. I would be really interested to hear what other M50 owners think about the sound that this produces. For me it is better than the stock M50's

In my last post I described using some foam. The foam I used was not dense enough for my taste. Well I got a new DVR today and the foam that it was packed in was much denser than what I was using. Sound is great and it looks like it should hold up very well. I'm really surprised more people don't talk about this.

Here are a few pics: