Beyer pad mod - turned up to 11
First Head-Fi post! (and it's turned into a behemoth) been lurking since November.
let me just start by saying great guide to the op, detailed step-by-step pics & instructions are wonderful. i wish i had seen this before i did mine a two months ago. oh, well.
[pics to follow at the end]
The reason for my post though, is that i too love the feel of the beyer pads, and the little extra depth that they give vs. the stock pleather pads. BUT, my biggest gripe with the v6's is that they're too shallow for my ears (sticky-outy ears i guess). the v6 are definitely circum-aural, but they cause a lot of the same pain as supra-aural headphones b/c the pads are shallow enough that the plastic presses against your ears (through the foam, but still...).
So, the other day, i was trying to think of how i could get more distance between my ear and the housing, and i stuck the original pads between my ears and the beyer pads, like a double cheeseburger. the difference in comfort was extraordinary, and the sound, as far as i could tell un-touched. now, obviously, sticking another set of pads up there is not real practical (i didn't get the pleasure of velour anymore), not to mention unsightly.
Well, looking into my little plastic bag of headphone foam and grille-cloth, inspiration struck, so to speak. i had a set of old ear pads from my brother's Direct Sound Extreme Isolation headphones (some of the most uncomfortable things you could ever put on your head, in my opinon). they're just the foam, w/o any covering. so what i ended up doing, was just stuffing the foam under the beyer pads with a plastic knife, held in just by friction. it compresses, but still adds a good amount of height to the pads, just enough that even though i can still feel the housing against my ear, it's no longer pressing or causing pain. I'm now super happy with the comfort and sound of the my v6's (though i would love to get some sweet open 'phones, and an amp... etc, etc.
but enough, rambling, here's some pics of my mod process. it's very close to the standard, but i think i have a few techniques that are really helpful for making things go smoothly.
here you can see four pieces cut off of scotch mounting squares. these help to hold the cloth steady while you're putting the pads on.
this is a piece of speaker grille cloth i cut to fit, since i didn't want to mess with the original pads and un-sew the foam
here you can see the process half way; the left pad is already turned up to 11, and the right one is the standard beyer-mod
on the v6 you can see i put in a piece of plastic i cut from a bag. this helps to keep the grille-cloth from getting ripped out by the force of stuffing the foam under the beyer pads. afterwards you just pull it out. that's the plastic knife i use to jam the foam under the pads, and the foam from the direct sound headphone pads that i stuck in my v6's. if you don't have something like these lying around, i bet you could use any old foam, like a strip of the stuff they sell to stick in between the two sashes of a double-hung window or around an air-conditioner to cut the draft.
here you can see the finished product, with the foam stuffed under the beyer pads. the gray foam is visible from an angle, but not head-on. i find that if you work one end in most of the way, then get the other end, then move to the long sides, working from their middle to the ends, it goes pretty smoothly (if that makes ANY sense). sort of like a cross pattern.
and the end result vs. one of sony's puny pleather pads. a huge improvement imo.
My 7506's started to separate on the inner seal so I can see the yellow-white foam.
Are they still cushy? or kinda firm-ish now?
