The sound is absolutely amazing with the mixing pads. Unfortunately, the mixing pads aren't nearly as comfortable as the producing pads, that alone would be fine. But the biggest issue is that the inner lining (protecting the driver) where the "L/R" letters are printed is made out of quite hard/scratchy material, and it keeps touching my ear lobes, and it's driving me nuts (especially the "R" letter). It doesn't help that the letters are "3d stamped" onto the fabric either.
Some of my other headphones also touch my earlobes a bit, but I can only notice it if I start moving the headphones with my hands, and even then it's not uncomfortable at all.
With the mixing pads on the 490s, I am painfully aware of any micromovement I make (like yawning, talking, chewing etc). I can position the headphones a bit further back to fix the issue, but over time they tend to slide to a "neutral" position. I really love the sound! They remind me of the 600 series in a good way (though it's been many years since I tried the 650s!), but they have a nice sound stage where I can really easily make panning decisions.
The producer pads have really nice bass response, and it fixes the earlobe issue due to the pads being a bit thicker, but something goes missing in the mids for me and everything sounds a bit scooped :( There is a noticeable difference between the pads for sure.
Other slight issues: the included cable is fine overall, but it transfers noise to the headphones a bit more than my other cables.
Under some circumstances I would head static from the headphones which I believe was caused by me moving my chair on a plastic floor protection, this would happen when I touch the cable. Super weird, I wasn't able to replicate the issue on any of my other headphones, only on the 490s. It wasn't a big issue though, I rarely move around that way.
I really want to keep these headphones, but I think I have to return them, schade.
