Replace the pads on your headphones - completely changes the sound

I hate it when this happens. You have to do it once a year or so with Grados and since I'm not made of money I tend to use 'any old' ear pads and not ones ordered from Grado. Just put on new ones (I had been using jerry-rigged Sennheiser pads for about a year; replaced them with cheap Sony ones, which actually fit better, but are less comfortable) and the sound change is dramatic. Uncomfortable airiness; Sennheiser earpads are very thick and they dull the sound. It'll take at least a week to adjust. It took a week to adjust to the Senn pads.

 

I know some film sound mixers who have complained that replacing Sony MDR headphone pads with Sennheiser pads screwed up the sound. Obviously, these things aren't 100% interchangeable, even if they fit.

With the Sony MDR-7506's -- the #1 standard headphone used by nearly all film & TV sound mixers -- I find the Garfield "Softies" covers make the 'phones much more comfortable, and actually take about 5% of the edginess off the high end. They're much less fatiguing this way. I've used them for 12 hours a day and they're fine for me with dialog. Definitely a little peaky for music.

 

I should order a new set for my HD 600s one of these days. I bought them used three years ago now and I'm sure they're due for replacement. They appear to be in great shape yet but I'm sure they've compressed some.

 

Yup, I have 3 sets of pads for my Alessandro MS-1's (Grado equivalent of SR-125's). I use the bowl pads, they sound most realistic - the other two sound much warmer (and mushier, and one is even quite boomy). Due to the way they're designed, I guess this is most relevant to Grado headphones. I spent several months trying to decide which pads I liked the sound of most.

 

I'm going to look into those - thanks for the tip!

One thing I'll observe, though, is that, when I was working at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 2005-6, I didn't see any Sony headphones in any of the studios or at any of the producers' or editors' desks. We were all assigned Senns. Producers and editors got cheaper ones and engineers got more expensive ones.

But the wiring of Senns is so fragile that I had to give them up; I never got more than 6 months out of a pair. Been using the same Grados day in, day out for more than two years now.