Thank you to ESL-1, and hillbilly559 for selling me their Mikros 90 headphones!
LOL. I went on a buying spree on aftermarket pads, plus the set ESL-1 sold me had mint condition original pads to compare with, so I did a fair amount of pad rolling. I now agree with earlier assessments of the geekria velour pads - not good changes to the sound. Originally I used those on my bass-modded (removed the weird sound stickers) clamp-pressure relaxed set and they were fine on it, but on the mint like-new set I just got, they alter the sound in a bad way. This is just my take-away, but after pad-rolling my favorite earpads for SQ and comfort are these:
SOULWIT Earpads. The SQ, tonality, and tuning is so close to original, I couldn't identify any difference between those and the brand-new ML pads. Like the ML originals, and unlike most of the other options, they don't cover any part of the driver with foam. The advantage over the original ML pads is that the memory foam is completely sewn into the pleather, so it can't wiggle and change shape except to squish. Comfort is good on the SOULWIT earpads and yet they are still thin enough to not alter the sound, while providing an excellent seal. Thicker pads could be more comfortable, but having the speaker further from the ear really affects the sound of the Mikros in a detrimental way. I feel that the Mikros 90's really do best right up against the ear, with a good seal and at fairly high volume. I'm only keeping the SOULWIT and ML pads.
Also ESL-1 passed along a very nice alternate cable and I couldn't help myself but pick up a
Fos Power adapter, a
Primeda cable, and a
Wekuant cable in my over-excitement about getting new working sets of Mikros 90's. However, I did not notice a significant difference with cable swapping, or all these cables are close to equal transparency. Could just be my ears/brain and over time maybe I'll notice differences as I get reaccustomed to the Mikros. The Primeda cable impressed me the most in build-quality. The Wekuant cable advertises silvered-plated copper and 4N High pure Oxgen-Free copper core, AWG20, and etc. so very high end. Both were $20 or less and look like they are really made and marketed by the same company (LOL). The cable ESL-1 provided has SQ just as excellent as those, and is much lighter than the other two I got. The Primeda and Wekuant are THICK, HEAVY boys (6.21mm and 6.5mm diameters)!
So now I have a bunch of earpads to return though I'm keeping all the cables.
It's been fun playing around with good working sets of Mikros 90's again!
I've read through a lot of the 448 pages of mostly praise and tips for them in this thread and I'm excited and anxious to give them a good listen. Some of you still hold them in very high regard after 12 year's of ownership and many headphone auditions later. I'll come back and post my impressions after the 100 hr driver break-in is completed. Talk at you then!