I have the meze 99 neos. I use my headphones a lot because I listen to music while studying then while gaming and then I watch some youtube videos before I sleep. So about from 2pm to midnight daily. However, my pinna or auricle which is the outside part of the ear is getting pressured propably due to the small size of the headphones and my big ears. A bit of discomfort was ok at first but now due to staying home all day because of the virus outbreak and using the headphones all day, my ears are so irritated that even when I have the headphones on for less than an hour they start to hurt. What can I do to solve the issue because I was thinking on buing some sub 100$ earphones and not use my headphones daily but I dont want to spend more since Ive already spent 250$ just for the headphones when my father is ok with his 9 dollar speakers.
I have the 99 Neo’s also. Good sound when I want bass. The downside for me was the small ear pads cause discomfort by pressing on my glasses causing discomfort on and behind my ear. To resolve this I always need “over ear” pads (SHP9500 is the perfect size for me). For the 99’s I got Brainwavz Sheepskin Ear Pads off Amazon - $40 w/free shipping. Probably could go with the non-sheepskin for less but I wanted the “extra”(?) comfort. They are not factory looking fit but you cannot tell when they are on your head. They did allow the headphone to sit and not press my ears so worth the $$$.
Did you notice any change in the sound or since the earpads are deeper making the headphones seem further perhaps?
Not really. Granted, I am not really qualified to speak about sound stage or sound differences just on pad swaps. To me, the discomfort prevented me from using the 99s. I almost returned them until I got the pads on a whim. I will add, the pads are not a whole lot larger than stock. They are larger enough for me to fit my ears within the pads vs the stocks which are on-ear. But my ears are not squished either.
For fun, I pulled the Brainwavz XL round pads off my 177x Go. The round pads sound the same (to me) as the others but the XL’s do not fit the oval earspeakers. Lol! Super comfortable though. OMG comfortable! Where is the roll of duct tape?
Thanks I will buy some brainwavz and hope that will solve the problem.
I just picked up a pair of 99 Noirs, and also found them to be fairly uncomfortable. After reading this thread I decided to try and swap the pleather pads from my cheap Monoprice H5s. They fit (a little loose). Initial impressions are that it should work and fix the comfort issue.
@ManosMax If you want some good comfortable earphones/IEMs then I highly recommend trying out the Guideray Gr-i series. Well built, good looks, very comfy as IEMs go, and come with nice wire and a range of tips.
Hey man, I would really appreciate if you could link me the same exact earpads that worked for you and if know thats the difference between ship skin and the others like hybrid and perforated.
so just in a general sense the earpad material lets more or less of the sound leak. With something like sheep skin it’s non porous and will generally increase bass and lower frequencies sometimes at the cost of the other frequencies. On the opposite end you have a perforated pad that lets more sound leak and would generally have the opposite effect. There are a bunch of other variables to this like earpad aperature size relative to the driver, how much space is in the earpad itself, etc and it will also vary based on each headphones cup design
These are exactly what I have on my 99’s. I have a red pair as well as backups.