When breaking the seal with my Tungsten DS and perf pads it made no real difference in the low end to my ears. I discovered today that oddly enough this is not the case with the hybrid pads. Breaking the seal with the hybrid pads does boost low end levels to my ears considerably. You can actually mount the pads at a little bit of an angle and they'll still lock into place, but only on the inner set of screws, which the outer screws then create an air gap between the mounting ring and the baffle. Incredibly fun little trick for any kind of pop, hip hop, or edm music and it doesn't seem to effect the rest of the tuning too much. I feel like I keep stumbling on new little ways to change the sound. Fun headphone.