So a handful of days ago I ordered some Brainwavz Velour Memory Foam XL pads after reading some suggestions on them when it came to improving the comfort of the R70X. I received them today and promptly put them on my R70X to listen-- and feel-- them.
First thing's first, their comfort is out of this world. The combination of the insanely light weight R70X, its wing system, their now very low clamping pressure after I bent them slightly, and then the super plushiness and roominess of the XL pads makes for bar none the most comfortable experience I've ever had with headphones, now firmly topping my AD700. Every so often I read the expression 'I forget they're on' for headphones. This has never held true for me, but the R70X with the Brainwavz XL Pads on them might just be the very first headphones I've had on my head where I could say that I'd forget they're on my head.
Coming into this I knew that the sound of the R70X would most likely change. Based on prior experiences with pad swapping and reading up on what different pads do to various headphones I kinda had an idea on what changes to expect. For example, switching to pads with a smaller ear-opening on Foster headphones would bring forward the midrange and lower the treble. Larger openings in general tend to raise treble on all headphones, and the LCD-X have a dramatic dip in its upper midrange when it had memory foam pads, which got alleviated some when Audeze made the switch to regular foam for its earpads. With that prior knowledge in mind, I expected more treble and less upper midrange out of the Brainwavz Velour XL memory foam pads.
Upon first listen I noticed a sound that was slightly less airy and had a more prominent mid-bass to it. There was a noticeable treble sizziness around 8khz to my ears, and it became especially apparent on some brightly mastered pop recordings with female vocals. I noticed myself having to turn the volume up to get a more full sound, which made the treble spike even more apparent. The lower midrange sounded more luscious, which was perhaps evident of a combination of upper midrange suckout and mid-bass that started creeping into the lower mids.
After about 5 or songs of subjective listening, I went ahead and placed the R70X with new pads on my EARS to measure:
First and foremost, here are my measurements for the R70X with stock pads: incredibly linear from 70hz through 4khz.
Here is the R70X with the Brainwavz XL pads. A very noticeable hump in the mid-bass, a huge drop in the upper midrange, and a spike to the treble at 7-8khz, which sounds very apparent when you turn up the volume to compensate for upper midrange depression.
Here are the two graphs overlaid for better comparison:
The R70X goes from an extremely linear headphone to a v-shaped headphone more akin to an Audeze LCD-X and closer to my Ether2 with perforated pads. It's safe to say I vastly prefer the sound of the stock pads, but I also vastly prefer the comfort of the Brainwavz XL pads. Considering that these headphones I bought were primarily for long-term comfort, I'll play around with the new pads for now and see what kind of additional mods I can do to make the sound more linear. I'm pretty sure cutting out a small hole in a layer of foam the size of the original earpads' opening then putting it inside the earcups will help reduce the treble spike some, which would go a long ways in making these sound smoother.
As for the upper midrange depression, I'm willing to bet some of it has to do with the usage of memory foam in the new pads. I'll see if there are other options available that use regular foam instead.
The sound of the new pads isn't necessarily bad once you get accustomed to the new sound signature, but it's definitely not ideal. I'll update the thread again with some more measurements after I do some additional experimenting. If anybody knows of some other pads that can fit the R70X and don't use memory foam, let me know!
Edit: just for funsies, look how close the R70X with Brainwavz XL pads gets to the Ether2 with perforated pads:
