mbyrnes
500+ Head-Fier
Sigh. I took my gen 2 m1060s out of the box and started listening to them. I have listened to them for 100s of hours now. They sound great. In my opinion they are comfortable as is. I have not disassembled them so I do not know if they are stained where I can't see. I have no interest in paper towels or different earpads. These seem fine as is.
Reading this thread I feel I am alone in thinking these things. Perhaps there is a forum somewhere where people don't buy jeans and replace all the fabric before they like them.
I personally switched to the Vegan pads because I'm not a huge fan of leather pads. Really the only exception in my collection is the TH-X00 Ebony. I swapped to Dekoni premium Lambskin pads because the ear opening is much larger and it keeps the majority of the bass. I did try HM5 pads on the TH-X00, and it killed the bass.
The sound improvement with the vegan pads on the M1060 is very real and worth every penny. Comfort increases dramatically. I also use 3" black party napkins, but a thinner layer as the full napkin cutout messed with the sound too much. Thinning the napkin by using half of it, improved the sound, close to a paper towel improvement.
My personal opinion is stock is pretty good. Vegans and paper towel mod bring it up a few levels. It isn't mandatory, but might surprise you with the Sonic changes.