I had work done on two of my headphones in 2015: TH900 (reterminated with balanced plug and converter back to 1/4) and LCD-X (entirely new cable). Both have held up perfectly, and have been a joy to use since. At this point no further praise needs to be added, but I had to come back to say that...

  Quote:   While depth may be a problem, it's unlikely that any of the eggshell padding will touch your ears. 

It does not, and, from what I understand, that's by design. I don't really understand it, but that's how it is, I guess. That's a feature that I enjoy and use regularly on my Asgard 2. 

Very much looking forward to hearing about your experiences. I've enjoyed (and learned a lot from) your previous posts on Head-Fi, and I'd be grateful to hear more of your thoughts and history.

In addition to what @Sonic Defender said, some amps won't work via a single-ended > XLR adapter. For example, my Mjolnir 2 would trip its protection circuit if I tried that.    Whether it works or not, there's no reason to have a balanced amp if you're just going to run it through a 1/4"...

Thanks! That was exactly my thought process. Very thankful for @PETEREK's great work.

@PETEREK handled mine, as well. Since the TH900 cable is high-quality and ready for a balanced connector, he was able to cut off the 1/4" plug, add the 4-pin XLR on, and convert the 1/4" end to an adapter. Works beautifully. You can see some pics in this post:  ...

I must be blind - what material is used for this mod? Out of what did you cut these circles?

Having just purchased a pair of LCD-X, I contacted @PETEREK for a quality balanced cable to replace the mediocre pack-in. He recommended the Double Helix Cables' Nucleotide. Looking forward to receiving these on Wednesday!  

It is - the wires are already in place for balanced connection. 

That's true, and would be very cool. Cable adventures!

Seriously. "My hobbies are awesome, but yours are a waste of money!" 

You won't be disappointed. The balanced out of the Mjolnir 2 is awesome, but the single-ended is no slouch. I can't speak for the Lyr 2, but it was an obvious upgrade coming from my Asgard 2. You'll especially have no issue with a set as easy to drive as the HD700 (which, if I remember...

Like @stjj89 just said, you can have it reterminated without issue. I had mine done recently by @PETEREK actually. You can see the photos that he took of the finished job on the last page in this post: http://www.head-fi.org/t/595683/fostex-th900-impressions-discussion-thread/11100#post_11927054

Other, more experienced folk can chime in as well, but I'd definitely say that the switch from the SE to balanced would give you a much larger performance improvement over moving from iTunes files to lossless.