[jrabone]

Not sure why you got downvoted for this, other than brand snobbery. That's also been my experience with Shure. As well as Sennheiser HD650 & Fostex T20RP, I own pairs of Shure e5c and e215 in-ear phones. The e5c are getting on a bit, and are perhaps fragile, but I had custom ear molds made for them. Out of the lot, the e215 are the best bang-for-buck I've come across.

The e5c's main problem is they are SO sensitive they are completely unforgiving about the amplifier used - almost anything with a gain block after a volume control is going to have too high an intrinsic noise floor for them to not show it up.