I picked up a pair of Shure E2C earphones recently because I had read good reviews about them and they were super cheap during a sale at Amazon. I think I paid only about $40. So far, I’m very happy with them. Shure discontinued the E2C and E3C after coming out with a new line of earphones, so if you find them, they should be discounted.
If you do pick up a pair, be sure to set aside at least 15 minutes to try out many of the foam and flexible sleeves that come with the fit kit. The first 5 or so I tried fit terribly. Then I tried one that didn’t look too different from the others, but the fit was great. In order to take advantage of the excellent sound isolation and bass response of these types of earphones, you need the tips of the earphones to fit snugly in your ear canal, but not too snugly that it hurts.
I enjoed using them around the house, but the E2Cs made their biggest difference when I used them on an airplane flight. They eliminated most of the background noise and allowed me to listen to my audio player as a reasonable volume. With my previous earbuds, I had to crank up the volume really high to overcome the engine and other people noise. They do such a good job of filtering out external sounds that I almost missed the announcement to turn off personal electronic devices.