i personally love them bothā¦so i keep them both on different pairs lol. the extra thickness of the aliexpress pads definitely keeps them in place more with all the weight the he6 has. on the pair with the brainwavz i clamped the headband together with the cups off to increase the clamp force and it balanced out a lot. suede is almost always my preferred pad for hifimans but something about how dummy thicc and soft the leathers are makes the bass rumble really hard and theyāll physically shake on my head if iām listening to something with really deep sustained sub bass and itās pretty awesome. makes me love how comfortable they can be and they sound great too. i suspect the magic with the brainwavz pads is that the memory foam inside of them is soft but doesnāt compress much and the gel contact patch seems like it stops that bleed that happens out of the corners of the seal points and the micro suede traps bass like leather but doesnāt ruin the mids and highs like a lot of leathers can sometimes do.
interestingā¦
I just put these back on today. So comfortable, with my Nuggets. 
I just spent several days comparing closed backs. These sound so wonderfully open. Mids are great, bass is great and the treble is just fine. Of course they sound Much wider than the closed backs.
Alphabetically I happen to start off with Joni Mitchell. I have six of her hits. The voice and the guitar work is great.
Great way to start the day!
I got the Brainwavz XL micro suede gaming pads too. The fit was fine, however as they are denser than the stock pads, I realised they tend to form suction in the pads way easier than the stock pads. Just a gentle press down against the side of my head to get comfortable when putting on the headphones, I heard very loud crackling sound. I found out that the suction caused the diaphragm to get pressed against the magnets. The crackling sound was the sound of the diaphragm peeling off the magnets. Though the diaphragm did peel off the magnets instead of getting stuck to them permanently, that seriously scared me!
Anyway the replacement pair that I received had the same issue of the diaphragm getting stuck on the magnet on the right driver. So unfortunately Iāll have to send them back to hifiman again. They said they are not able to provide me with a return label since Iām not based in US, which means Iāll have to pay for the return shipping even though I received a defective unit. Theyāre offering me additional 3 months extension of my warranty and an extra pair of pads to make it up to me. At this point, Iām just tired and wary, I just want to get it over and done with. So Iāll probably just take up their offer and pray that the new replacement will turn up in good condition.
But you stopped using the Brain Waves pads immediately right?
Weird. I canāt say Iāve had that happen but it sounds scary. WTF is up with people having such bad QC issues with hifiman? Iāve never had a single problem with the like 40 sets Iāve had from them.
This is just a guess but I think part of the problem with the HE6SE variants is that folks are using them with regular amps, maybe they are pushing too much power to the headphones.
i have a pair thatās been hooked up to a 300 watt per channel speaker amp for a year now and itās doing just fine. itās not a power issue. itās definitely a quality control issue.
think my dac could be holding the chain back? (Geshelli Jnog) HE6se sounds basically the same to me on pretty much every amp Iāve tried, probably selling my Flux FA-10 amp and HE6se as I donāt have money for a higher end dac lol
I had the stuck driver issue too. I think thereās something about the HE6se drivers that makes them stick easily.
My HE4XX drivers constantly crackle from touching the magnets when I put them on, but they never stick.
Yea, freaked me out the moment I found out the source of the crackling sound. So I switched back to the stock pads immediately
Could be due to the defect in my replacement unit. Since a small part of the diaphragm is already stuck to the magnets, so the entire diaphragm is much closer to the magnets. Thus they all get pressed against the magnets with the slightest suction. Though I heard the crackling from the both sides when the left driver seems to be in good condition.
I have to say, despite the defect in my right driver, I can already hear the significant improvement in sound as compared to my original pair with both drivers stuck to the magnets. So knock on wood that my new replacement set will not disappoint me again!!
Enjoying these again today. As I plug along through my collection alphabetically, I realized today how much these headphones love Kenny Wayne Shepherd/Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band. The vocals, the guitars, the drums and the horns sound so good, so clear and so open.
Wow, these are Amazing.
Was just able to pick up a Burson Funk for a good price. What are peoples
Thoughts of hooking the HE6SE up to it through the speaker leads? I know the Hifiman adapter has a couple of resistors in it, are those needed for protection? I r got stuff to DIY an adapters, but I donāt know what to put on line for resistance of anything. Thoughts?
Just make sure you drop the volume to zero before and after youāre done listening and plug and unplug the headphones while the amp is off. Do it like clockwork, make it a ritual. You donāt need resistors and the he-adapter box has a noticable drop in quality because of the resistors inside and as long as you do your power cycle ritual everytime you should be fine. All it takes is one time to blow the headphones (and your ears) if you go turn the plug them in while the amp is on with something playing and you get a power spike from the impedance adjustment.
I just bumped into these very cheap pads - itās $10 incl. shipping for me. Anyhow, if this can help anyone.
Leather - Perf - multiple variants.
It f#$%ing works. 
THANKS for giving me back a little piece of what I gave up switching from the speaker amp. A definite, noticeable improvement. Right away.
Thanks!!!
I just took these off today as my wife is Christmasing hard today and I needed closed backs. Quickly.
I posted elsewhere, but wanted to mention it here. MAN, these are great rock 'phones! Not that they canāt handle everything, but they really do sing with rock. Yesterday I decided for the first time in decades to play All of my Zeppelin consecutively. It was about 6 plus hours and it sounded awesome. The vocals, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards have never sounded better.
It was a whole day of ALAC files to BF2 to iFi Pro iCAN w/bass boost and 3D hitting hard. As if I needed to remember why Led Zeppelin was my favourite band growing up. 
You aināt kidding. Van Halen on these cans is something else. Beautiful Girls ftw.
You are lucky man, i got a brand new Sundara with a loose wire on the right driver which i soldered myself, then i found out there was a huge channel imbalance in that set. After that i got a defective HE6 with a stuck driver on the right side.
From what i read in forums QC is horrible in all sets except the Susvara, but maybe that is just because there are less Susvaras around comparing to Sundaras or Aryasā¦
I am extremely happy that i got a good pair of HE6 now, even sold my LCD-X. If this HE6 breaks after its warranty is over i will just purchase a new one right the fu** away, lol
ENDGAME
Btw, 40 Hifiman sets?!?! How many sets do you have in total??? lol
Current hifiman collection is HE1000se, 2x HE6se v2, Edition XS, HE400se, HE560 v4 and a first gen 400i (as reminder that planar doesnāt necessarily mean good at anything). Slimmed down a lot lol.