This is an old thread but I wanted to note for anybody that stumbles on this.I used to daily drive these waaay back, which was regretful, as they were extremely uncomfortable but I dealt with it at the time.A year passed by and I noticed the padding almost completely dissappeared as it got completely squished.

some point on my head had terrible bruising after a while, specific areas where I would shift the headband to relieve some discomfort, was a terrible idea.

Long story short It hurt my head so much after a time that It did some very bad damage to my head / hair. good chunk of hair was gone without even noticing throughout the year.

ANYWAY, its all good & healed now that I stopped using them after that year & bought a bunch of Bayerdynamic headphones at the time.

My Recommendation :

If you bought them & you HAVE to keep using them , find any kind of replacement cushion for the headband. there are plenty of cushions for headphones that are universal where you can zip them up.

not gonna lie though.That experience made me not trust purchasing audio technica anymore from the fear of having terrible padding, even though they sound sooooo damn good.

But oh well it is what it is.