I recently sold my Koss Pro DJ 100s (my first real headphone) and bought the AKG K550. I would have kept the dj100s, but their poor comfort was a dealbreaker. On paper the k550s seemed like everything I ever wanted in a headphone. Additionally, about 1/3 of the music I listen to is classical, and I heard the k550s blow the stock dj100s out of the water in both soundstage and imaging. However, after a few days of using the k550s, I found some major issues (mainly the light clamp force, their massive size, lack of bass, and this one spot in the upper mids with ridiculous glare), and am almost certainly going to sell them. While everything on the k550s except bass presence and some treble sounds better than the pro100s to at least some degree, I find nothing except the soundstage, imaging, and comfort to truly be worth the extra money, and the problems that is has cancel out those benefits to make it just not a good match for me.
My main contenders to replace it are the dj100s + m50 pads, and the jaycars (hm5, fa-003 clones). Both come out to $70. I do not want to invest in an amp, but my sources are pretty good.
My first question: do the m50 pads significantly improve both the comfort and soundstage/imaging on the dj100? Those were the the two big issues I had with the stock dj100s. The k550 solved both of them with flying colors. I might be able to live with the dj100s even if they don't improve much for classical, as they were still okay before. However, comfort MUST improve significantly. The stock pads were much too shallow and not large enough for my ears.
Second: are the jaycars better than the dj pro100? I ask this in regards to comfort, isolation/leakage, and sound when both are unamped. Also, I found the bass on the pro100s to be almost perfect, how much less do these have?