I finally got my hands on a TR-X00 Purpleheart this past week. My Lawton driver dampening mod should be here tomorrow. Overall I'm liking the sound (especially dat BASS!
) although they do sound a little congested to me (my Elear with Elex pads has spoiled me, I think) but I'm guessing that the Lawton mod should improve that. The two major things that I dislike are the stock cable and ear pads. The cable has the single worst microphonics I have ever heard on a headphone cable. I'm really glad that I didn't get the TH version and be stuck with that noisy cable. I got a third party Sennheiser cable but the pins are further apart than they are supposed to be, and while it works, it makes me worried that it will damage the cup connector over time. So I'm still looking for the decent cable on the cheap (<$50). I don't really want to fork over $100+ for a custom cable. However, the cable is much less of a problem compared to the pads.
The pads have two problems: material and comfort. Comfort-wise I can only wear them for a few hours before my ears start to hurt; the ear holes are too small and the foam is too hard. As for material, I absolutely
loathe pleather. If you look at my headphone stable I have swapped out every pleather pad for some form of velour or microsuede pad. So the pleather pad material needs to go. I knew going in that this wasn't a headphone that I could slap a velour pad on and call it a day since I wanted to maintain the bass. I can confirm that after doing some basic pad rolling that velour or hybrid changes this headphone into a super V-shaped mess (with attenuation rings) or puts it in treble hell (without the rings). Microsuede would be my first choice of material (the now-extinct Audeze Vegans are my ideal pad in terms of comfort) but I'm considering genuine leather since I'm slightly apprehensive about the suede pads losing all of that wonderful bass.
ZMF and Brainwavz both now have microsuede options, although the Brainwavz pads only come in flat varieties and after previously mentioned pad rolling I did it seems that this headphone does benefit quite a bit from angled pads (if anyone has tried those Brainwavz pads I would love to hear what you think). That leaves the ZMF Ori or Eikon. The ZMF Ori seems like it would be the best physical fit for the Purplehearts since it has a very similar diameter to the stock pads but I have seen some say that the Eikon pad has a better sound signature than the Ori pad on the Fostex but the looseness of the fit worries me a little. I don't want my pads sliding off.
The venerable
@VRacer-111 did a nice pad comparison that included both the sheepskin and suede versions of the Ori pad on the TH-X00 but I haven't seen any detailed posts directly comparing both the Ori and the Eikon pads on the Fostex. Any help on that comparison would be pretty helpful. Also a direct question for VRacer, you mentioned that the bass was reduced on the suede Ori pad vs. the leather version. Was this comparison made using the same half-moon attenuation rings that I saw you post about at one point or did you increase the coverage of the ring to try and compensate for the loss of bass?
I also have a couple of questions on pad materials that I haven't found solid answers on. I have never actually tried a genuine leather earpad so how does it compare pleather and microsuede? Given how much I hate pleather I don't feel super confident blindly getting a $60-$70 leather earpad. Does leather actually breathe better than pleather? I don't like sweaty ears. I also don't like the sealed resonance that pleather pads have, where all exterior sounds have that boomy quality. How is leather compared in that respect? And lastly, I wear glasses so pleather pads "fart" excessively when they shift on my glasses. Hopefully you know the sounds I'm talking about. Does leather do this too?
TL;DR version:
Need better pads, debating between the Ori and Eikon pads (suede versions, probably) and would appreciate some comparisons (both fit and sound), preferably on a Purpleheart.
Also how do genuine leather earpads compare to pleather ones in terms of breathability, sealed resonance, and "fart" noise factor?
Bonus question: <$50 cable recommendations for TR-X00, 5-8 ft length.
Double bonus question: Sound impressions of the new Brainwavz microsuede pads on the TH-X00.
Thanks in advance for the help!