started by buying a replacement earbud for my Discman, sony NUDE series, no idea which model 51 or 71 i think. I choose that purely due to design, i wanted canal-type as i felt its more comfy. I was a Uni student then, listen to music for hours at a stretch. Spent $86 on it, remember that one of my friends was shocked by the price.
used that for nearly 2 years, in the mean time got a Korean MP3 player 256mb for $369. MP3/usb player with FM was really new back then.
when the sony broke decided to get something better to replace, and i still wanted a canel-design. read some mags and web reviews, decide to buy shure E2C, damm....realise these things are not easy to find, bought at SLS. wah spending $170 for a earphone a little bit of heartpain.
after that found out about head-fi and SGH..................................................