[SunTanScanMan]

  So after meeting a member @234537 at the Cambridge, UK, HeadFi meet, I had to get myself a pair.  I'm a convert!
 
I have a Stax 507 setup but wanted to upgrade my Sen 580s and borrowed a friends 650's they were good, but not 'distinct' enough from the 580s IMHO to make a change.  However, the W1000 is an amazing phone for the collection.  Thank you HeadFi community for bringing it to my attention. I'm going to do the direct comparison between the 580 / 650 / W1000 and write it up but right now it's just great having this phone in the mix.
 
Driven right (Chod Hugo) it's a clean and engaging delight.
 
I'm hooked.

Congrats! I have the HD650 as well. I think the two headphones complement each other quite well due to their differences.

 

[ejswa51]

Just received my W1000x last week, and have a quick question: do the AD1000x pads fit on these?

 

[DarkScythe]

Hey guys,
 
I posted a thread here in the Recommendations subforum, but was suggested to post in here instead.
That thread has more details, but long story short, I need to replace the earpads on my W1000X. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to get them, or even what to get to begin with.
I don't seem to know if Audio Technica sells any earpads / parts in the US, and from some searching, it seems people suggest using the L3000 earpads which I also can't seem to find for sale anywhere.
 
Any ideas or suggestions?
 
Thanks.

 

[SunTanScanMan]

  Hey guys,
 
I posted a thread here in the Recommendations subforum, but was suggested to post in here instead.
That thread has more details, but long story short, I need to replace the earpads on my W1000X. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to get them, or even what to get to begin with.
I don't seem to know if Audio Technica sells any earpads / parts in the US, and from some searching, it seems people suggest using the L3000 earpads which I also can't seem to find for sale anywhere.
 
Any ideas or suggestions?
 
Thanks.

Hopefully someone from USA may be able to help with sourcing it there.

I personally bought a replacement W5000 pads on ebay without problems I found them a definite upgrade to comfort and seal. Arrived from Japan in around 1-2 weeks. W1000X pads are also available there.

Posted pics + info + impression on p.123 of the thread. Good luck anyhow!

 

[DarkScythe]

Thanks for the tip. That's pretty bad if you have to resort to eBay, though.. Haha.
I suppose this means it's actually pretty difficult to get parts straight from Audio Technica, then? And are the W5000 pads the same as the L3000 ones? Or are we simply grabbing anything that isn't pleather at this point?

 

[SunTanScanMan]

Well I think I can buy the both the W1000X and W5000 earpads on the UK AT site. However, like their high end headphones they are almost twice the price than if I had imported from Japan. Hence I went via the Ebay route. I did briefly peruse the US AT site but couldn't find the earpads on sale there...
 
I've never used the L3000 pad, but from photos I believe they are slightly different. I don't dislike the stock pleather pads as much as some members but yes, it was worth switching to something more plush and with slightly larger hole for the ear.

 

[DarkScythe]

Hmm, okay. So I'll look at the W5000 pads and see how they differ from the L3000 ones, although it probably doesn't matter if I can't actually find any of the L3000 pads for sale anywhere.
My only trepidation with buying second-hand from auction sites is that it's really tough to tell whether or not products are authentic or actually what they claim they are, since most ebay ads simply paste in twenty thousand keywords without any sort of guarantee that they're even related.
 
If anyone else has any ideas, though, I would love to hear'em.

 

[obobskivich]

Hmm, okay. So I'll look at the W5000 pads and see how they differ from the L3000 ones, although it probably doesn't matter if I can't actually find any of the L3000 pads for sale anywhere.
My only trepidation with buying second-hand from auction sites is that it's really tough to tell whether or not products are authentic or actually what they claim they are, since most ebay ads simply paste in twenty thousand keywords without any sort of guarantee that they're even related.

If anyone else has any ideas, though, I would love to hear'em.

AFAIK ATUS will still sell you replacement pads for any of their headphones if you contact them directly (a friend actually completely rebuilt a pair of ATs doing this - they sent him drivers, cable, pads, etc for pretty reasonable pricing (cheaper than replacing the cans) just based on a few emails). I think AudioCubes II still sells AT pads from AT-Japan - the price will be higher but I've never heard of fakes coming from AC. If the replacement you need is on cans still under warranty, I'd absolutely be contacting ATUS and seeing if they won't cover it under warranty (IME ATUS is great to deal with).

 

[DarkScythe]

Thanks for the suggestion; I was thinking about doing this, but wasn't sure if they would accept such requests... It's pretty awful trying to find specific information on their site. Any idea on the approximate pricing your friend got?
 
I've checked AudioCubes a few times, mostly because posts here talked about purchasing the L3000 pads from AudioCubes, but they don't seem to stock them anymore.
I'll give emailing ATUS a shot; Is it parts@atus.com according to this page? I suppose I can just tell them that I have a W1000X and want to get some W5000 or L3000 pads for it. Hopefully they have them available, and not too expensive, although I'm always amazed that earpads for these things are in the $50-100 range.
 
As far as warranty goes, I highly doubt it. For one, this pair I have is already a couple years old, but more importantly, it was imported from Japan. I purchased my pair before it was available anywhere in the US for sale, I think. (Purchased it in December of 2010 from Amazon JP, apparently.)
Hopefully this won't affect anything, or does ATUS only sell parts to headphones in warranty?

 

[DarkScythe]

Well that was fast. ATUS responded pretty quickly to my inquiry.
 
Just as an update, the representative responding to me says that the L3000 is "not available" so I guess I'm out of luck there.
However, he did get back to me with pricing for the W5000 and the W1000X earpad replacements.
 
According to the quotes, the W1000X earpads are $5.25 each, or $10.50 for the set. The W5000 earpads are $33.45 each, or $66.90 for the set... that's a pretty large difference between the prices, haha.
I suppose I have little choice but to go for the W5000 ones if I want to get the leather ones.

 

[obobskivich]

Just saw your posts (and see that you already got a reply) - yes parts@atus is where I'd go, and yeah the pricing you got for W1000X sounds about right; it was really surprising how inexpensive the non-leather pads are vs importers. For AC, you'd probably have to go through their subsidiary AC2 (audiocubes2.com) - I've never seen their main site carry much in the way of spare parts, but AC2 tends to have a lot of stuff. The price difference is likely because the W5000 pads are genuine leather, and the 1000X are not (I forget what the exact material is). IME both have worn well (I've owned both headphones for years and both pads have held up well); a lot better than older ATH-A series pads that were notorious for flaking apart.

AFAIK it's no problem with warranty if you're paying for the spares; my only reasoning there was if the cans were <1 year old (I think the warranty is only 1 year, it may be longer though) you might be able to get the pads for free. At least the stock pads. I've actually never tried claiming replacement pads under warranty on any headphone though, so I don't even know if manufacturers honor that as a rule (they may consider it a consumable and thus not a warranty item, idk).

 

[DarkScythe]

I did actually check both AC and AC2, but neither had the L3000 pads available. Otherwise, they have the W5000 pads for $100, which is way more than what ATUS appears to want to charge. (Think they said shipping was like $5 to NY.)
I'm pretty conflicted because I do want to try out these leather ones (and hoping that they last longer than the W1000X ones I have) but they're also vastly more expensive.. haha. Maybe I'll just bite the bullet get both, so I at least have one or the other available as a spare in case it starts flaking again.
 
I understand the logic behind trying to get it replaced for free under warranty (I mean... isn't that the point of warranty?) but I doubted I would have it even if it was new since I had imported mine from Japan. As far as I'm aware, at least with most other things, warranty is tied to geographic locations.

 

[obobskivich]

Not surprising on L3000 - those things have been out of production for a long time. I think AC prices are higher since they're buying from AT Japan and then shipping to US. The W5000 pads (I've never tried on 1000X) are very nice imho, and do breathe better than 1000X. However the 1000X pads seem, IME, to hold their shape better. Not sure if that helps you at all.

 

[DarkScythe]

Haha, thanks for the descriptions. I have no idea if it helps either, as it seems like something I'll just have to try to see if I like them or not.
 
It does sound like there aren't any other options for higher quality earpads for the W1000X, though.
My current stock pads on them are peeling, but the pad itself is still pretty full and soft, so I don't know, haha. I guess there's some sort of gray cloth layer underneath the pleather.

 

[obobskivich]

Never seen W1000X peel, but that was common on the older A series pads. They had supposedly fixed it with the X release. Guess that was at least a potentially optimistic claim on their part. From what I remember you can put the AD series fabric pads on some A and W series as well but I would expect a significant sound change if you did.