Ear Pads by Size: The Cup, the Opening, and the Mount

Ear pads by size are a short list, and replacement ear pads in the right size need the whole list. Outer width, outer height, the inner opening both ways, and thickness. Ear pads with the right mount are the check you make by turning the cushion over. A single diameter on a listing describes a round pad. A lot of cups are oval, and the hole your ear sits in is a separate shape from the outside.

Orders come back in a familiar pattern. The outside matches, and the ear hits the foam wall. Or the cushion looks right, and the ring never catches. In May 2019, on Reddit, someone with stiff TaoTronics TT-BH060 pads asked which size to buy if they wanted a softer pair. One reply said a few millimeters of difference in diameter can usually stretch onto the cup, and a much larger gap cannot, so measure the outer edge and the inner hole. Another reply said the mount is what usually spoils the order, and that taking the old pads off is how you see the hardware you have to copy.

Put the ruler on the pad you still have

Listings are written in millimeters. The metric edge of a ruler is enough. Calipers are easier when the pad is still on the cup and you need the inner wall. A tape that shows only inches will round you onto the wrong listing. Four inches is about 100 mm, which is the neighborhood of a large round pad. The miss that gets you a return is smaller than a quarter inch.

Measure the pad that is on the headphones, with the foam resting, not crushed under the ruler. Left to right across the outside. Top to bottom across the outside. Then the clear hole, both directions. Thickness is the distance from the cup face to the surface that meets your head. If the pad is wedge-shaped, write the deep side and the shallow side.

A tired cushion lies about its own depth. In October 2021 someone who was tired of listings with no dimensions started a personal size list, written as outer and inner height, outer and inner width, and depth. For an HD 6-series pad they had about 110 mm of outer height, about 85 mm of outer width, a smaller opening inside that, and a depth of 25 mm when the pad was new that sat closer to 20 mm after wear. Those are one person’s tape, on one shape. They are also the reason a single “about 100 mm” from a round-pad listing cannot describe this cushion. The height and the width are different numbers, and the worn depth is shorter than the pad was on day one.

If the foam is shredded, measure the ring or the plate the pad locks to. That part does not collapse the way the foam does.

Outer width and outer height

Round pads can live with one diameter. Oval pads have a long side and a short side. Measure compatible ear pads by the outer and inner width in mm, and write the height beside them. A width alone is only a slice of the oval.

Lay the ruler on the outermost fabric and read both directions. Write them as width by height, in millimeters, so a later listing has to match both. Ear pads measured to the ear cup width are the left-to-right number. An oval still needs the top-to-bottom number beside it.

A few millimeters of stretch is what that TaoTronics thread was willing to allow. Ten or fifteen millimeters is a different cup. In December 2023 someone with pads that were too wide for a smaller headphone was looking for a way to shrink the hole by 10 to 15 mm. That is a mod, with a new inner ring, and it is a lot of work to avoid measuring the cup you already own.

The opening around the ear

Ear pads by inner size are the hole your ear has to clear. Outer width can match a listing while that opening is small enough for your ear to sit on the foam. The package looked plausible because one number agreed.

Measure the clear opening left to right and top to bottom. If your ear touches the inner wall when you put the headphones on, the new opening needs to be at least as generous as the one you liked. When the outer width matches and the inner opening does not, the pair looks right on the desk and feels wrong on your head.

Angled pads cheat this reading a little. The opening you measure on the table is the opening at rest. Once the pad meets your head, the foam cups and the hole changes shape. The person logging HD 6-series sizes noted that shift. Measure at rest so you can compare listings, and then hold the pad up to your ear before you decide a tight opening is fine.

Thickness keeps the driver where it was

Thickness is pad depth. A taller cushion moves the speaker farther from your ear. Bass and the sense of space move with it. If you want the fit on your head to stay the same, stay close to the depth you measured on a pad that still had its shape.

Buy ear pads by width, height, and pad depth as three lines on the same listing. A page that offers “thick” without a millimeter is asking you to guess. If the pad is angled, the thick side and the thin side are both the spec. A wedge replaced by a flat pad of the thick-side number will sit taller than the headphone did.

The worn HD 6-series example is the caution. A crushed pad can read 5 mm short of the cushion it was when new. Order the depth of the fresh pad if you want the original distance, and use the crushed reading only as proof that the old pair is done. In February 2024, someone sizing a replacement for an older pair was told that a large round pad often lands around 90 to 100 mm outside, and that depth, inner diameter, and angle all move the sound if you drift off the original. Stay close when you liked the headphone. Change the depth when your ear is touching the driver and you can live with the new balance.

The back of the pad decides the order

Width can be perfect on a cushion that has no way to lock. Ear pads that clip on a ring still need that ring after the width already matches. A common return is the pair whose size matched and whose mount did not. The photo of the front is how that happens.

Look at the back of the pad you took off.

• A plastic ring, or a harder foam loop, with notches that snap into the cup
• A sleeve of material that stretches over a lip
• Glue, or a pad that came away in shreds and left adhesive on the cup
• A plate that twists or screws, with a notch that has to line up

In January 2024, on Reddit, a Paww Wavesound 2 owner already knew the pads were 80 mm across. One cushion had split on the seam. The pads they kept finding online were built to stretch around a cup. Theirs clipped into a recess on a harder foam loop. The diameter was in hand. The mount was the thing that would have made the order wrong.

The same miss shows up when the ring itself is a different size. In November 2015 an HD 555 owner bought replacement pads from a shop, then a second pair, and neither would click in. A reply asked whether the plastic ring on the new pad was the same size as the stock ring, and said the old ring might have to move onto the new cushion. Another person said those pads seat in only one rotation. A matching outline can still miss the groove.

If those cups are yours, look through Sennheiser pads and set the ring you removed next to the listing. Compatible ear pads with the same clip style are a photo of that ring, plus the millimeters, together.

What to write down before you pay

Compatible ear pads matched to your measurements are a note, not a memory of “about the size of the old ones.”

• Outer width and outer height, in millimeters
• Inner width and inner height
• Thickness, and both sides if the pad is angled
• The mount: clip, sleeve, glue, or a plate
• A photo of the back, taken before the old pad goes in the trash

Buy compatible ear pads by size only after that note matches the listing. Replacement ear pads in the right size are the ones where the opening, the depth, and the clip agree with the cup on your desk. One diameter is a start on a round pad. It is the whole job only when the pad is round, the thickness is stated, and the back of the cushion locks the same way.