Headphone Ear Pads Renovation

by pnavarro1

5.8K133

Intro: Headphone Ear Pads Renovation

Hello.

This is my first Instructables.

The purpose of this guide is to show how to renovate headphone ear pads. The headphones featured are a pair of Sony MDR-V500DJ. After being bought around 2005, the ear pads have seen better days. Of course, you can always buy a new pair of pads or even a new pair of headphones, but that's why I decided to renovate the worn pads. For almost nothing.

After years of use, the pads tend to lose their comfort, so wearing them became difficult, specially after a few hours. So first I used cotton balls to line the driver cover and the pads themselves. It worked nice, but it simply looked horrible.

So, why not use something else, cheap but functional to restore comfort?

STEP 1: Ear Pad Removal

Simple process, just pull the edges of the pads outwards -carefully-, so as not to tear them.

These MDR-V500 have a white fiber/paper "filter" that cover the holes, the drivers are just behind. Removing these paper doughnuts improves the sound in a huge way.

Bass improves, as they are considered weak in that department.

Anyways, as you can see, the pads have begun peeling.

STEP 2: Cutting the Sponges

So, while walking by a beauty supply store, I saw make-up sponges (make-up blender sponges, I think). I thought they looked big enough to cover the driver plate. A few questions and a couple dollars later, I was walking home to begin the ear pad comfort restoration.

Be carefull when cutting the mid-section.

Looks like they were made for each other!

The selection of the sponges was easy, they are extremely soft, so they should provide a more comfortable experience.

STEP 3: Fitting the Sponges - Final Steps

We're almost done.

So the only thing left to do is:

Re-install the original ear pads
Fit the newly cut sponge doughnuts
Re-install the fabric discs

To re-install the fabric discs underneath the sponges, use a ball point pen.

That should be it!

After using the headphones with the restored ear pads, my ears don't hurt like before the mod was done. It could look better of course, by painting the sponges dark gray or black, but the contrast of red against black kind of looks appealing.

STEP 4: Epilogue

What to do with the remaining bits of sponge?

Paint happy faces on them.

I found the picture with the paper donuts! Those are the ones that restrict the quality of the sound, so to get better bass response from these ear phones, just remove them!

3 Comments

MikB 9 years ago

If the outer black plasticky coating starts to fail, the sponge/pads allow air to leak, and the headphones no longer seal properly. Result: Noise gets in and out, and bass suffers.

I have a pair of Sony CD250s that I re-padded. Complete new pad construction. Foam donuts, like yours, but I over-wrapped them with two layers of black plastic from a bin bag, for a seal. Then constructed a new fabric sock to go over the lot, from the ankle end of a pair of socks :) A bit of creative stitching later, and done. They've outlasted the actual replacement Sony pads I bought the first time.

The headphones are great, but the replacement pads are over-priced flimsy tat :(

pnavarro1 9 years ago

Hey MikB, I haven't experienced that buzz of bits and pieces falling into those holes, but I'll be sure to check - though I don't think any.

The mod about removing those paper/fiber donuts to improve sound quality came from here:

https://adriangin.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/headphone-repair/