Great review. The pads on this set ....there must be some back story of drama and chaos.  I have been in this game a few years now and car audio for a loooong time and that price up above $176 plus the 55x pads of course....is one of the most ridiculous deals on this site. I have owned/own a lot of the good well loved and high priced gear and I still love the **** outta these beast mode bass cannons.

"The pads on this set ....there must be some back story of drama and chaos." <- It's the only possible reason I can think these awful pads ever saw the day of light dude. One day in like 40 years some ex-JVC employee is gonna spill the beans on why the screw these shipped with these **** quality pads man.

Even worse is that they (JVC) are not able to learn. These phones are from 2012. You would expect that 4 years later they changed the pads to thicker ones, and changed the small TRS plug to one with thread to screw on the adapter to 1/4" TRS (and this adapter would be included, of course). But no, they prefer to have the looser label sticked to their front head until the product is discontinued one day, it seems.
 
BTW, I am always a bit worried about reviews that claim the SZ2000 needs tons of power. That is simply not true. With 108 dB SPL @ 1mW they are very sensitive and provide lots of volume even with less capable phones. One needs the tons of power for the head shaking rattling bass stuff (as you describe it). But that would be true for any other phones as well - just that they can not handle that power.

You make a good point as the SZ2000 is actually quite easy to drive as you say. I didn't make it clear enough that it's capable of handling massive amounts of power, not that it requires it. Good suggestion, thanks.

When I first looked at this review, I had no idea it was by you and that those pads are the ones you got from me. XD