It’s been more than two years since I have my Shure SRH1540. The sound of them never disappointed me. The comfort, on the other hand, never satisfied me completely. The very first day I bought them they were not so comfy… but it was like wearing a new pair of shoes, someway you knew they will shape your (big, in my case) head. And they did, after a couple of weeks of heavy listening I could barely notice I was wearing them. They were one of the most comfortable cans I have ever wear.
Almost two years after heavy listening, I use to use them an average of two hours per day, the small leather cushions placed on the head strap started to peel off. I had to keep moving them while using the Shure’s. Every time a little the adjustments were more consistent. It started to be a pain in the ass! To be honest I arrive at a point where I couldn’t enjoy the music as much as I would want to. I needed to find a solution.
I googled it and Shure does fulfill through their website a headband replacement for 18$ plus shipping (I’m located in Spain, so the shipping was going to be something similar to the headband itself). I started to have some doubts about buying the replacement. Not just because of the 30 dollars to be spent, but also because the original cushions were not so comfortable as (for me) they were supposed to be. I have some free time as well, so I started to find a third-party solution. There was no one that shared a clear simple solution to this issue. And if go online you will hear about a lot of people complaining about this issue. That is why I wanted to share my quick and super simple solution.
The fake leather cushions would start to peel off. You will try and stick them once again. DON’T. Take them off and threw them away. You won’t need them anymore. Buy some foam (see the picture below where I show which one I got personally). Cut the foam with the same length (or more) as the original cushiness. And of the enough with to make a spin over the whole headband. My foam is of (andrea, put your dimensions here). Then buy some cheap headband sleeve (like this one). And you are good to go.
You would have spent less than 10$ and now you have a more comfortable pair of headphones. Before having this particular solution I tried to do the same but with other material than the foam. i tried to use the original cushions in the equation. All those things failed, nothing like the mix I have described above. If you have this model of headphones try it and you will not regret it.
For me, the most important thing when listening to music is the quality of the sound. But as a close second, it comes the comfort because if you are not comfortable, that would be annoying in the long run and it would diminish the sound quality. Just because your head would think about the heat spot in your head rather than in the separation of the layers of that particular tune.
That is it! hopefully, I helped somebody out there to enjoy their music more now. Peace out!