SUNDARA Replacement Earpad Velvet Leatherette and Soft Foam Ear Pads Compatible with Hifiman SUNDARA HE400 HE400SE 400I 400S HE560 560I HE500 300 350 HE3 5 6 Headphones

Not enough design and effort was put into making Hifiman pads easy to replace.The hooks that hold the pads on the Hifiman 4XX are made of a thin thin metal. The hooks on these (and the original) pads are low quality plastic. Ironically that's a good thing since it reduces the risk of damage to the headphone when removing or attaching the pads, but it increases the likelihood of damaging the pads when trying to put them on.Unlike the factory pads, these are uneven with less padding on one side. The side with less padding should face forward. The fact that they have direction makes it that much harder to attach, but it does make them a bit more comfortable to wear. The clamping force seems to be better distributed.The difficulty and risk of damage during attachment is not a defect of the pads, so I didn't rate them lower. These are cheap and good quality pads. Just be careful.

After a few years of heavy use the pads on my HE-5SE started to blow up and disintegrate pretty badly while I was in the middle of editing a large video project. I tried to fix them with spray adhesive but it turned into a chore. With Prime I could get these in about 36 hours, so I pulled the trigger. Price was right.Overall the material quality feels pretty identical to the HiFiMan pads. For the most part you could put these next to the same style HiFiMan pads and you would be hard-pressed to spot the difference. The faux leather is nice, the foam is just firm enough, and they seems just about as un-sturdy as the HiFiMan equivalent!As a few others mentioned, they sucked a fair bit to install -- certainly harder than the original HiFiMan pads. Because the backing is plastic you run the risk of bending them if you push too hard (scary) and I wound up swearing a fair bit trying to get them on. No sooner would I get two tabs in than another would pop out. Very frustrating, but I guess you pay for a bit of the price discrepancy with sweat equity.I would totally buy again in the future though -- good enough for me, no real impact on sound, if anything they restored the "space" and sound stage a bit by moving the cans back away from my ears (my old pads compressed a lot more because they were heavily used).

These pads are some of the only ones I've seen that, like the original HE-4xx, have the attaching ring and pad as one piece. This is sort of nice because visually there is only one seam on the headphone like the original pad. It was difficult to get them on at first because you have to try to get these hooks placed in there just right. I ended up using two hands and putting some pressure into it finally. There are two difference I've noticed from the OEM pads. The inside of these is fenestrated pleather rather than the velvet. I'm sure this bounces the sound around differently and I'd reference the Dekoni site for how that impacts the curve. Secondly I think that the fabric that covers the driver is a tad thicker. I noticed a bit of a darkening overall of the treble that I didn't like quite as much. I think you could probably cut a small circle and help this if it bothered you. Comfort level is nice - just as good as the originals when they were new. I'll see how long they last, but for the price I'm happy with this choice.

Edited: Left ear is now starting to come apart from the glue. Lasted about 90 days before started happened. These aren't thrown around and I take care of them.Works just have to make sure you line up the right side because these are angled a little bit. Cheap replacement that works for hifiman he560, just know these are a little more firm than the original, but I am sure over time that these will probably get as soft.

Since Hifiman apparently doesn't sell oem pads, I was a little hesitant to get thicker aftermarket ones with different materials. They're thicker and firmer than the oem ones, but still comfortable because they're directionally angled unlike the oem. The only difference to the sound profile is a tiny bit more bass, which goes along nicely with the bass boost eq I already always had applied. Putting them on was a bit tricky but that's because of hifiman's design. The mounting tabs held up perfectly despite several failed attempts.8 month update: theyve held up alright to daily use, the foam inside has deformed awhile ago but is still usable. No rips or tears but will be ordering another pair soon to get the flat rectangular shape back

These fell apart after about 7 months unlike the stock pads that only needed replacing due to excess squish. I had to go back to my original pads because these have unglued and completely failed. The sound signature change was slight but notable and while back to back is hard to test, I do think I prefer the sound of the original pads.

They looked, feel and smell way better than my original pair that crumbled from 4 years of use.They were a pain in the fingers to put on but I blame HIFIMAN for their terrible mounting system. The ergonomic form that the original have is preserved and the foam used is quite soft yet firm, which I like.I might update in a few months depending on how they hold up. Great product so far.

I was able to replace originals that fell apart after 3 years approx. These just popped into place with minimal effort, I did not have to exert any force taking the old cushions or snapping in the new ones. They are tilted, my old ones were not, but from what I understand I had the older version - new Sundaras are having tilted cushions also. So far so good, we’ll see how long they last, but for this price it’s okay if they fall apart sooner than the originals.