[milesandcoltrane]

I've been loving the sound of my recently purchased ESW10JPN!! Love the sound and aesthetics BUT the comfort is getting to be a bit of an issue for me.

I've done the headband stretch over a folded pillow and around the edges of my AT HPP5 hard case (the widest side) every day since I bought them last week, for 8-12 hours a day.

However its still mighty painful for me to wear them for more than an hour. Usually I don't get to listen for more than an hour at a stretch, but since I got these cans, I love the sound so much I've made it a point to take as much time to listen to them as I can. And these past few days I've been clocking in more than 2-3 hours a stretch. During these sessions I have to constantly adjust the pads, take the cans off briefly and put them on.

My ears hurt really bad =( Today it got to the point where I started having a bit of a headache.

I do have a pretty large head, but I didn't quite have this problem with the HD25-1 II, another supra-aural, from what I remember. I think it might have to do with the stiffness and the depth of the leather pads on the ESW10JPN.

What should I do guys and girls? Stretch it out more for the next few weeks?
Please help =( I'm quite sad about the state of affairs where comfort is concerned.

 

[Szadzik]

Wait, wait, wait. They will stretch after some time. My ESW9s took around a month to get to the state where they are ok. I kept putting them onto a box for stretching every night for a month.

 

[thread]

I find I can adjust the swivel cups so the pressure is on the fronts of the ears and barely on the ears at all. By adjusting them when they bother me, I find I can listen for hours before needing a short break.

 

[milesandcoltrane]

Muchas gracias guys!

Really appreciate it! Somehow I've been a little impatient haha!

I'll keep stretchin'em out like yall said =)

On a sidenote, because of the comfort issues I've been having, I've been experiment with placing the cans on different parts of my ears, notching the band to a bigger size and I find that with each iteration the sound changes quite a bit.

I did what thread said, swiveled the cups both ways, with the back of the ears handling the pressure the sound is a bit weird and distant, with the front of the ears handling the pressure, if its not too extreme, the soundstage takes a wider perspective. The more acute the angle the wider the soundstage in general but the sweet spot is there.

With 5 notches exposed on the headband, the cans cover the top part of my ear, leaving the bottom exposed, and in this position the sound is more upfront.

With 7 notches exposed on the band, the cans are biased slightly towards covering the bottom part of my ears more than the top - in this position the sound stage takes on a wider character as well.

The changes are subtle unless the positions are in the extremes, but its something I've noticed.

 

[K_19]

Yup. Same here. The sound changes are very noticeable in regards to how you position the cups. This probably varies a lot depends on your ear/jaw anatomy though.

As for comfort issues, I got 'em pre-stretched out and it fits me perfectly without any discomfort even after an hour. It's possible that your ears are not finding the pads comfortable enough (since they are indeed on the hard side), or that your ears are just intolerant to supraaural designs in general. You could try to padroll with ESW9 pads which do indeed fit and is (slightly) softer, but it'll change the sound signature without a doubt.

 

[Szadzik]

In search of more comfort ,and not only comfort, I modded my ESW9s a bit too. I felt that the pads are a bit too close to the driver and caused that my ears were almost pressed against the driver itself. I put a piece of cable below the cup co that the cups are a bit farther from the driver and got a bit more soundstage and comfort too.