Cracking pad on HD595?

The cracking issue with the 595's is on the earcup piece usually cracks form on around the n's in Sennheiser. I had a pair of 595's for about    1 1/2 years as well and mine developed cracks on both sides near the n's. The crack on one side was getting pretty long and I was getting closer to the end of my warranty so I decided to send them in to Sennheiser to see if I could get them replaced. I sent them a note with my warranty exchange request mentioning that this is a known defect with the 595's and asked if they could replace my 595's with a pair of 598's since the 595's are discontinued and I was worried if they just gave me a new headband the cracks would develop again and my warranty would be expired. Sennheiser sent me a factory refurbished pair of 598's the same week they got them no questions asked, I just had to pay the shipping to get my 595's to them. They look and sounded like they were brand new, so Sennheiser has a pretty good warranty department. Factory refurbished headphones are usually just as good as new if not better b/c they usually put in new parts and do even more extensive testing then they do on new headphones to make sure they don't end  up being sent back to them again.

So my suggestion would be to find your receipt if you still have it and contact sennheiser and see what they can do for you. Does the leather itself just looked cracked like it is just worn or is there an actual crack in the headband piece? Posting pictures may help if you can. My guess is if the headphone itself is cracked, you still have a proof of purchase and you are in the 2 year warranty period, you could probably send them in and get a pair of like new refurbished 598's. Make sure you send them a note with your warranty request. The worst that could happen is they decide not to replace or fix them and you end up paying them to ship them back to you.
 

The cracking issue, is related to the plastic part of hd595. It breaks near the cups.

Bought mine off amazon too. Just have her go back in her orders under her account and save the invoice as a PDF and attach that to your warranty claim on their website. 

You might as well ask them if they can replace them with 598's. Just say you are worried about ending up with a discontinued product that will be out of warranty soon that might come apart on the headband again or eventually crack near the earcup since that is a known problem with the 595's. If they determine your headband problem falls under warranty they might automatically decide to replace your headphones with a pair of 598's anyway. My guess is unless the headband is the similar on the 595 as the 558's, they probably wouldn't have a 595 headband to replace yours with anyway since the 595 has been discontinued for around 2 years now.