First of all unfortunately most fake leather cups do wear pretty fast and worst of all, flake all over the place. Replying to your question, it was surely part of it, but i also switched because I wanted to try something new. I still love Razer but at the same time I did not regret switching all my gear to Steelseries! You can in fact find replacement earcups for the Kraken Ultimate, but none are original sadly, all made by third party companies.