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Headphone comfort mod

One thing that always bothered me about my Shure SRH440 headphones any many others is that the earpads aren’t thick enough to keep my ears from touching the hard plastic surrounding the speaker. I know I don’t have abnormally large ears that stick out but my ears get really sore after only a few minutes of wearing them. Yesterday I came across this forum post that addressed the same issue for different headphones. One of the comments suggested a simple mod that involves inserting some thick wire under the ear pads to make them thicker. I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised at how well it solved the problem. Minimal effort, excellent results.

[Click to enlarge photos]

The first photo shows the earpads of the SRH440 before the mod. These have a circumaural design (around the ears) but the padding isn’t thick enough to keep from squishing your ears.

For this mod you’ll need a couple short pieces of wire/cable. I used a broken guitar cable. You’ll need two 10″ pieces.

Insert the cable under and around the earpad. Trim the cable if  too long.

As you can see the padding is now raised giving you much more ear room.

I highly recommend taking a few minutes to try this on your headphones. You’ll like it.

Thanks for checking reading!

6 Comments

  1. Nate
    Nate March 14, 2011

    Thanks for the tip! My pair of Audio Technica’s are getting pretty flat in the padding department, my ears are just about hitting the speaker frame thing, due to the amount of times I’ve fallen asleep with them on only to wake up and realize I just been squishing the foam for 6 hours. I’ll have to try this one out right away, I can feel that they’re way less comfortable than when I first got them.

  2. online mastering
    online mastering March 17, 2011

    Definitely a nice plan headphones can be very convenient but so many have a problem, whther they fit like a headclamp, or they don;t block sound, of they are too hyped or break easy. This is a next to now money tweak which is really worthy of an article thanks for sharing the info with us.

  3. Gordy
    Gordy July 31, 2011

    Many of the middle range quality headphones like the BoseQC15 and others can be painful around the ears after wearing for awhile. Depending on your head size, the included level of padding of the phones and the adjustability of the phones, it’s just a matter of time and heat build up before you need relief. This article addresses the problem head-on with the supplemental padding.

  4. Anonymous
    Anonymous September 17, 2011

    Excellent article. Greatly increased the comfort on my SRH440s. For ultimate comfort, I recommend getting some velcro tape and the Sennheiser 580 headband. This, the SRH840 earpads and the Sennheiser hd580 headband make a world of difference in terms of comfort. 🙂

  5. Eric
    Eric August 13, 2012

    Nice tip.

    Just to add, I’ve found that broken Mon$ter cable inserts sound better then generic broken cable inserts.

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