Tonight, I'll be making new lambskin earpads for my new vintage electrets

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Tonight, I'll be making some new ear pads for my new vintage electrets. The electret arrived with ruined pleather pads. No pleather left, only uncomfortable fabric. As a downside, the fabric ruins all the deep bass. My first attempt to restore the pads wasn't a success. They ended up a bit too small for the baffle. I'll be making them (or try to make them) with a bit bigger diameter, to reach further out on the baffle.

They are to fit onto here:

And the old pads measure like this:

[pabbi1]

I bought a bunch of lambskin on eBay and had a local leather guy make mine for some CD3k, after I struggled to screw them up. Respect in pulling this off.

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Thank's!

The first step is the template. It's the same diameter as the baffle, but the oval hole is smaller. (This was the design of the stock pads. I assume the design was ok.). I also made one template with 5mm extra on each side, to give me some room for mistakes. (That's the top side of the pads. The small one goes on the bottom.) It's a bit dirty because it's been sprayed with spray mount, to make it into a post-it-template. I used it also for the foam. The glue made sure it didn't move around.

Next step is sewing the inner seam. That's easy, I just turned the pads inside out and made the seam. (This is also the design of the original pads, and other pads that I've seen.)

Then, it's time to reverse the pads. I've first sprayed the larger pad side as well as both sides of the foam with spray mount. This makes it easier to work with, since things stay reasonably put.

As you can see the pads aren't too wrinkled now when I can start with the outer seam. Wrinkles must be avoided since they become extremely uncomfortable rock hard bumps. (Probably I'll not be able to finish this tonight, but it's a start.)

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A professional pad maker would have made them even nicer I suppose. But I don't want to spend too much at the moment.

As I do the sewing, I cut off the excess leather. But only from the larger piece, otherwise it wouldn't be a circular pad in the end.

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The first pad is done. Not perfect, but there aren't any truly bad wrinkles on it. Soft and nice.

Both sides of it:

[MASantos]

The first pad is done. Not perfect, but there aren't any truly bad wrinkles on it. Soft and nice.

Both sides of it:

Looks good!

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Thanks! Second pad is done. I think it turned out even better. I didn't need to cut off any leather this time.

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And the final result )

I'm quite happy about these. They fit the baffle perfectly, and are thin, soft, and comfortable. Like wearing a leather sofa. No hard folds anywhere.

[Elephas]

Looks good, nice work.

Sometimes it's easier to just buy a replacement earpad. Other times they're difficult to find or are very expensive, especially if the headphone has been discontinued.

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The Stax SR-X pads would have fit.

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Still the X1 doesn't extend quite deep enough out of my XCANv3 amp or NAD C160 preamp. I suppose it's not the fault of the pads now. Maybe it never did extend deeper down. Or maybe more leather is needed. Or something else entirely. I am running out of ideas though.