mine came with 3 brown cables in a brown zip up hard case with gold lettering.

wow.. I have no idea! crazy the amount of fakes out there I've heard people talk about. like I said I bought a well worn in pair to tweak and replaced pads and headband cover.

I use an amp/dac on all my headphones, but no they for sure don't need one.

yes they are discontinued, I got mine used and swapped pads and put on a headband cover.

It seems that they add some general bass with the mod and make the highs more tame, but at the same time slightly less sub bass and more roll off. They do fit great and feel nice though. I guess I need to listen some more. I was hoping to not have less sub bass.

I'm currently waiting on the msr7 and pads to be shipped so we shall see I guess.

I just ordered some dekoni sheepskin pads and a pair of msr7's. I hope they will work ok with the internal paper sticker removal mod mentioned pages back.