Ear pads are a wear part. On SG-01 they last about eighteen months of daily use before the foam stops recovering and the leather starts to crease at the seam. Neither of those is a fault, and neither should cost you a week without your headphones. The swap takes four minutes and the only tool you need came in the box.
What you need
A replacement pad set, which is stocked in the shop and will be for ten years. The T5 driver from the SG-01 box. A flat surface and a cloth. That is all. If you lost the driver, any T5 works; if you lost the box too, write to us and we will send one.
The swap
One. Twist the old pad a quarter turn anticlockwise. It sits on a bayonet ring, not glue, so it should release with light pressure. If it fights you, the ring has picked up grit; do not force it, wipe the lip with the cloth and try again.
Two. Lift the pad clear and look at the ring. There are four T5 screws. They only need to come out if the ring itself has worn, which is rare, but check that none has backed out. A loose ring is the usual cause of a pad that never quite seats.
Three. Set the new pad on the ring with the seam at the back of the cup, where the hinge is. Press down evenly and twist a quarter turn clockwise until you feel the stop. You will hear a small click from each of the three tabs. If you hear two, lift and try again.
Four. Repeat on the other side. Put the headphones on and press both cups gently. The seal should be even with no cold spot at the jaw. If there is one, the seam is in the wrong place.
While the pads are off
This is a good moment to clean the driver grille with a dry brush, and to check the cable port for lint. Do not use liquid on either. If the grille has a dent, leave it; it is acoustically transparent and a dent does nothing to the sound.
Anything that wears should come off without a heat gun. If it does not, we designed it wrong.
Signal repair principle 02
The old pads can come back to us in the bag the new ones arrived in. We recover the foam, and the leather goes to a workshop in Kreuzberg that makes small goods from it. Postage is on us, and there is a label in the bag.
Cable and battery swaps follow the same idea with the same driver. Both guides are on the SG-01 page, and both take under ten minutes. If any of this goes wrong, the two-year warranty covers the repair and we collect.
