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Just Refurbished My HD580s. Wow.

Seeker_UK

Seeker_UK

Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
When I state "refurbished" I mean new OEM earpads and disks from Audio Sanctuary for £35. Absolutely amazing what lifting the drivers 5-10 mm further away for your head makes - like a new pare of headphones for relatively little money. All it needs now is a new cable - the HD25 cable I'm using is OK but a bit on the short side.

If you have a pair of HD580 / 650 etc, and they are knocking on. I highly recommend this easy job.
 
I did essentially that with my HD565 Ovations (c 1998) a couple of years ago; new earpads, headband pad, new cable (one side had gone flakey, traced to a 'small-side pin' fault in orig cable)


Great joy, for little outlay : )
 
I do wonder if my 650s with dilapidated ear cushions and no headband padding to speak of, would benefit. £10 can get you new ones, but going up the chain would probably be more sensible. Trouble is, with Focal Elears and Utopias, I can't seem to bring myself to do anything about it, although I do love my Senn's.
 
Mike Reed said:
I do wonder if my 650s with dilapidated ear cushions and no headband padding to speak of, would benefit. £10 can get you new ones, but going up the chain would probably be more sensible. Trouble is, with Focal Elears and Utopias, I can't seem to bring myself to do anything about it, although I do love my Senn's.
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If you can get genuine Sennheiser pads for £10 then please let me know where?!

I've replaced the pads on my 2011 HD600 twice now. I noticed a bigger improvement in SQ the first time because it was longer overdue. The headband cushioning makes no difference to SQ that I can tell, only comfort. I actually find my HD600 more comfortable to wear when the headband padding has almost disintegrated so didn't replace it until last year, and when I did it was with the HD650 headband padding which has the notch to relieve pressure from the top of the head. More comfy than the HD600 headband padding IME.

FWIW I can go weeks without listening to my headphones so my earpads don't have a hard life... If I wore them every day then I imagine I'd benefit from replacing them annually.
 
I did the same for my 600s a couple of years back. Overall, still my favourite headphone out of my selection.
 
ToTo Man said:
If you can get genuine Sennheiser pads for £10 then please let me know where?!
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Never even implied in my text ! :) Think the genuine Senn. ones are almost up there with the Dekoni specials in price. Last time I seriously looked at doing sth I identified the deepest cushions; they do differ in depth and a couple of mm could make a difference in sound and comfort. My pads are original, I guess, so prob. 15+years old. tend to use them for TV via can amp as music demands the Utopias.
 
Mike Reed said:
Never even implied in my text ! :) Think the genuine Senn. ones are almost up there with the Dekoni specials in price. Last time I seriously looked at doing sth I identified the deepest cushions; they do differ in depth and a couple of mm could make a difference in sound and comfort. My pads are original, I guess, so prob. 15+years old. tend to use them for TV via can amp as music demands the Utopias.
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The composition/porousness and density of the earpad foam and fabric will also affect SQ. That's why I stick with genuine Sennheiser replacement pads, so that I know I'm restoring my headphones to as close to factory-spec as possible.
 
Put new pads on my K702's a few months ago to replace the well worn originals - the improvement was noticeable.
 
Seeker_UK said:
When I state "refurbished" I mean new OEM earpads and disks from Audio Sanctuary for £35. Absolutely amazing what lifting the drivers 5-10 mm further away for your head makes - like a new pare of headphones for relatively little money. All it needs now is a new cable - the HD25 cable I'm using is OK but a bit on the short side.

If you have a pair of HD580 / 650 etc, and they are knocking on. I highly recommend this easy job.
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I replaced the actual headband on mine, I sourced the replacement from China 'not a good idea' the pads were hard as nails.
Still haven't obtained the correct replacements , it's on my to do list when I obtain the correct part!

I bought a pair of 600's but sold them shortly after, I and a couple of my friends couldn't tell the difference between the 600's and the 580's.

I believe the drivers are the same!
 
I did the same with my 580s last year, which I've had since new in the mid 2000s, and boy did it make a difference. And I can confirm that the drivers in the 600s and the 580s were both identical.
 
I've had a pair of HD570s for more years than I care to remember. They're like Trigger's Broom though.

That's the beauty of buying Sennheiser. I'm pretty sure that the HD600s that I use most these days will probably outlast me.
 
Fishies may find this useful, something I posted in another thread back in March.
palindrome said:
I’ve replaced the cable on my 25 year old(ish) HD580’s 3 times but not the deteriorating pads or headband cushion (I’ve had a duster wrapped around the band held in place with cable ties for about six years). During a practice session on my e-drums last week I noticed tiny black bits of foam landing on the snare, one bit of which I couldn’t remove as it seemed to have ‘seeped’ into the mesh head. Bugger. Time to replace a few bits.

The earpads: I decided to pay extra (£35) and bought these https://www.audiosanctuary.co.uk/sennheiser-hd545-hd565-hd580-hd600-hd650-earpads.html from Audio Sanctuary. Fit like a glove, and like Tony suggested, fitting involved pressing them in around the perimeter until they click.

Headband cushion: a bit more problematic as the Sennheiser website sent me round in circles looking for this particular part. Although amazon had a few cheap options, like the one Tony linked to, the reviews are very much mixed; complaints about the foam being too hard, uncomfortable, not conforming to head shape, foam deteriorating quickly, etc’. After too long searching the web, somewhat ironically I ended up back at amazon after using a different descriptor in the search engine. This https://www.amazon.co.uk/AHG-Compat...ted-Black/dp/B0CV7ZFVFP/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21 came today and again is a perfect fit, very good quality, and comfortable. £20. And you only need to remove one clip to slide it in.

I can recommend these if anyone else has been struggling to find these particular parts, and want something that at least approximates good quality. Time will tell of course.

John

ps: never heard of AHG before, but their site on amazon looks useful.​
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John
 
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