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Headphone Ear Pad Material

This may be old news to headphone experts but I just realized that ear pad material has a fairly big affect on how headphones sound. I guess I knew that in theory but now I know it in practice. The ear pads on my HifiMan HE-500 headphones literally fell apart. I had pleather ear pads and replaced them with cheap ($10US) HifiMan velvet ear pads. The foam in the new ear pads is quite a bit firmer than the old ear pads.

The new pads have a more open sound with maybe a little less bass, or maybe the bass is less boomy. In any case, I think it's an improvement. I like a strong bass as much as the next guy but if there's a tradeoff between better bass or better midrange I'll take midrange any day.

I didn't realize it, but I guess there's an environment inside the ear pads (much like a room environment with speakers). I guess the new velvet ear pads are absorbent while the pleather was more reflective.


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Topic - Headphone Ear Pad Material - newvinyl 19:00:32 08/25/21 (1)

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