I posted my initial thoughts on the JMoney leather pads in another thread but thought it might be relevant here as well:
I got my new pads yesterday; they do look well made, don't seem much heavier than the stock ones and are certainly stiffer. There are no instructions that are included.
I began by trying to remove the stock pads and one of them came off without too much effort but the other side took significant effort, to the point where I was worried I would damage the pad. After getting it off (no damage done) the next step was to remove the round plastic ring with clips from the pads. You have to stretch the edge of the pleather to remove them and again, given its thinness, I was concerned I might tear the pleather. After taking my time, I was able to remove the rings without any mishap.
The next step was inserting the rings onto the JMoney pads which I did gingerly so as not to tear the leather when stretching it over the plastic. Then came attaching the pads back on the headphones, but I had difficulty getting the clips to "snap" back into place since the inside leather edge acts as a gasket and since the leather is a bit thicker than the pleather, trying to twist it fully into place seemed likely to damage the pads. I ended up not pursuing this and so far, the pads seem to be staying on the headphones fine.
I had not listened to the Denons for over a week, so the first thing I noticed in listening with the new pads was the sound seemed leaner with the upper midrange more prominent. This was not a result I was hoping for since the sound is more fatiguing this way, so I tried a wide collection of songs and sure enough, the leanness remained consistent. Yes, the bass is more defined but it's lost some of the oomph it had before, which I liked. My guess is the change in bass character combined with the increased midrange forwardness is what's giving the modded Denons this lean quality.
Since I only have maybe 70 or so hours on my Denons, I thought perhaps there needs to be some additional break-in since in my experience, the break-in process on any component can vary from starting off sounding better, then sounding worse, then sounding better again before it finally stabilizes. It's usually not a linear transformation. I'll report back when I get another 100 hours or so on them...
Regarding the comfort, my hat size is 7 3/4" so I found the clamping on my head to be more pronounced. Before the change, the headband adjustment was on the 3rd indent but I found I had to move it to the 4th indent after the change. I haven't done any long listening sessions yet to see whether the new pads are as comfortable or breathe as well as the old pads, so we'll see about that later.
Sometimes, an upgrade isn't an upgrade. I certainly hope that's not the case here since I already sold my stock pads. For those who found the stock D7000s too bassy or too warm, the JMoney pads may be your cup of tea. For those who found the sound and comfort of the stock pads pretty much to your liking, well then, the jury is still out...
