Travel Technology - Comfortable Headphones

I use a the blackberry hands free headphones that came with the unit and I find the ear buds to be a touch to big for my ears as they are left rather sore from using them longer then 10 mins or so. I've used the Iphone ear buds but they too are a touch too big for my inner ear.

I'd be curious to know if anyone has a favorite set of ear buds that they use that are somewhat smaller then the above mentioned items. I'd rather not use a model that is outter ear based, so any suggestions for an ear bud like model would be most appreciated. I've had my eye on the motorola blue tooth head set that fits in your ear and gos across the back of your head.

I'm with you on sore ears. While the rest of the males in my family have large ear canals, I was blessed/cursed with smaller canals, and most earbuds (such as the standard Apple ones) leave me uncomfortable. They also don't stay in my ear canals very well, so they tend to fall out (so I have to jam them in really hard, which then contributes to ear soreness).

I would strongly recommend looking at in-ear headphones ("earphones"), which are actually inserted in your ear (much like earplugs). Because of the seal formed by the earphone sleeves, not only are they the best for noise reduction/sound isolation, the lower frequencies don't leak out, meaning you'll get far better bass response (try taking regular headphones or earbuds--even cheap ones--and pushing them up against your ear so there's no sound leakage: you'll see how the sound quality improves remarkably). And while even the lowest-end models aren't exactly cheap, the higher prices mean the speaker drivers are of a much higher quality, and so you get better mids and highs, too. Most come with a wide assortment of earphone sleeves (foam, rubber, soft plastic, etc.), so you're bound to find one that is comfortable.

For sound, I'm a fan of Shure's product lineup. The punchy low-end and clear highs are the kind of sound I favor. The [rather expensive] Shure SE530s I have are by far the best set of headphones I've ever put on or in my ears. Even the lower-end products in the Shure catalog have very good sound.

For comfort, I'd recommend Westone. Their soft foam sleeves were so comfortable, I couldn't even feel the earphones. I didn't like the Westone 2s that I tried out, though, because I found the sound a bit too muddy. They had a very warm sound (much more "natural" than the Shures), but the high-end clarity wasn't focused and the low-end response was lacking. My solution? Return the Westones but keep the (used) Westone foam sleeves--they fit right on the Shure SE530s I exchanged the Westone for! :D (Westone now has a newer product, the Westone 3, which might be significantly better than the Westone 2s I tried, but I can't comment on them.)

Because of good prices, great service, and good comparisons and substantial reviews of the products on their sites, I've bought two pairs of headphones from these guys (http://www.earphonesolutions.com/) (three, if you include the Westones I bought and exchanged with no penalty for the Shure SE530s). I'd recommend checking their site out and reading about some of the different models of earphones. If you have questions about which one will fit you best, I found their pre-sales email support to be extremely helpful and willing to spend a lot of time helping me decide.