I am absolutely done with pleather. Never again. I personally recommend the new Shure srh1440/1840 velour pads. They are ~$25 and are slightly better than stock. But once stacked top of stock pads, they sound heavenly with New Stock (NS) T50rps. I haven't tested with Old Stock (OS), as my OS are in pieces atm. This setup significantly improves SQ, bass, and soundstage, but since no one here has really played around with stacked pads a whole lot, current modifications will probably
not "play nice" with stacked pads.
On the advise of BMF and MrSpeakers, I redid the seal (using double-sided mounting tape) between my srh1440/1840 pads and the stock pads.
(Left: First Run; Right: Second Run)
Just as they predicted, immediately the amount of bass increased, significantly. Bassheads rejoice, as it hits fairly hard. Ultimately, because of the better seal, the efficiency increases as well as bass depth and amount. For those following, I was extremely satisfied with how the T50rp responded to the stacked pads on my first run where everything else was completely stock. I cannot say the same about this setup. I think it could be a step in the right direction used as a base for current mods. As is, it is WAY bass forward for my tastes and no long has super tight bass using the "perfect seal". This weekend, I plan on making minute "leaks" within the seal to see if the bass tightens back up. If not, I will go back to the way it is in the first picture above.
Here are my impressions about the changes with the seal from picture 2:
Immediately I noticed the bass improved a ton. Bass notes now hit hard and seem to give that almost subwoofer-like hit that people rave about IEMs. The new seal seems to color the sound a bit more, though not negatively. The brightness in the highs are back which causes some fatigue at higher volumes. The mids seem to be a bit faster and more liquid, cleaner is
not the correct word, but slightly more sparkly. I will say the biggest improvement over the original seal has to be that the new configuration sounds terrific at low volumes, where before, low volumes sounded "off". To the negatives, the way it is now seems much more congested. The soundstage is there, and well defined mostly, but if feels like a ton of people/instruments are squeezed into a tiny studio. Where as before, the soundstage was
huge and lifelike (positionally as good as my ad700s). This setup at mid-high volume is quite fatiguing. That hump most refer to with the T50s seems to have come back with this seal. Before, I could listen to hours before I needed a break, now it is closer to 1 hour. Everything seemed a bit cleaner before, though seal#1 also did
not sound that great at low volumes. Bass now seems so heavy that I get a mild headache after testing out
bassier bass-forward songs.
All and all, I think this is a step toward the right directions for my tastes. I am hoping by creating a controlled leak in the seal, bass will once again tighten up and the sound stage will widen. I will report back with results, I plan to create 1,2,3,4 leak seals in different configurations to see if I can get the results I am looking for. If there is a way to get the sound tuned without ever opening the cups, it would make my day. That is not to say that a fully seal pad stack should have inside modifications, but that I do not want to start all over with the nearly infinite combination of schemes just to tighten up the heavy bass.
