Seems to be reinforced and have a longer support base. There may be some music were fans are accustomed to a heavy emphasis on the bass and sub bass but they wont get their bass fix here and the A4000 may sound lacking to them. Since getting them, I washed the pads a couple of times, as they get smelly, but in doing so I ended up destroying the foam and the drivers started to get too close to my ears, killing the soundstage. Very convenient & definitely worth the money. Added this to our homemade bar cart. 5 and they barely fit. I?ve loaded it up to 180lbs and have had no issues. I really dont know if anything short of a nail head would work. ;o)Update 10/29/18:Bose updated the software and they must have changed some settings for the bass. Once they were removed it all worked fine