Doesn't the padless headphone already exist?

And I'm not sure if custom molded headphones for each person's ears would be good or not, like CIEMs they'd have terrible resale value, and I bet our faces change shape as we age, especially with weight loss or weight gain.
Also, it may not be very comfortable to move your jaw with those on.

Apart from the lofty rambling about the future  (just rhetorics, sorry),  I wonder if there are not real headphones that would profit from the suggested solution. The old Koss ESP-9 (closed-can ELS), for example, is resting on the ear with a crushing force, and  is achieving its - much needed-  seal by using the poor outer ear as a kind of gasket. The volume of the enclosed air is made small this way, and a maximum of bass energy is transferred to he inner ear, at least as it happens in my imagination. (in addition these very clean sounding phones needs some extra bass input through EQ, but going that route alone will put limits on how loud they can play, as one does not want the membranes to crash into the stators earlier than needed, so to speak). Now, equipping such phones with big, soft and  lossy cushions to solve the comfort issue simply does not feel right! Hard pads like those suggested I think might be a better solution, esp if fitted not only exactly to the surface of head,  but also exactly to the size of the outer ear. (Individual fitting would allow one to even fill in the space behind the ear somewhat, in case one wanted to reduce the amount of enclosed air as much as possible).

Other, in particular resting-on-ear phones,  might also be  candidates for this kind of potential improvement  through “padlessness”.

 Perhaps one even could give the HD-800 some more substance in the bass by going this route, who knows. (do they not feel a tad loose?).

But how to build an “insert” to test it out? What materials to use (without laser scanners and 3-D printers at hand)?
Is it possible to have made an exact physical 1:1 model of ones head? (then one could manually, layer by layer, build the insert “in situ” with some synthetic modelling clay, say).

Most peoples' skulls have similar contours around the ears, with the biggest variance between male and female, and a bit between different races of people. Presumably you could design two types, to account for those with more prominent cheekbones/jaws etc, and those with more subdued contours.

Memory-foam is mandatory to account for smaller individual variances, and the actual shaping can be done by measuring a large sample of people of every race and gender then averaging sets of the data.

Heat-shapeable foam? I've seen shoe insoles that are like that. You put them in the oven at very low heat then stand on them for a minute for them to form, and after they cool they have the proper imprint.

Heat-shapeable foam? I've seen shoe insoles that are like that. You put them in the oven at very low heat then stand on them for a minute for them to form, and after they cool they have the proper imprint.

I think he is talking about something like this [link]http://www.jmsplastics.com/thermoplastic/thermoplastic.php[/link] , you can heat it up, apply to head, then allow to cool into shape. You could do a layer of denser resin nearer the driver (using same method), then do an outer layer of the softer foam-like stuff.

That actually sounds very comfy. Also, if you use a headband with adjustable tension...