Recommendations for noise-reducing headphones/earphones please

[bran]

I've just bought my first mp3 player (what can I say, I'm not very cutting edge, more toddler-safe knife really). I'm mostly listening to audio books and podcasts so when I walk past a building site or a noisy lorry passes I literally lose the plot. The in-ear phones that came with the player don't fit into my ear, and my over-the-ear phones let in much too much external noise.

I'm thinking about buying a pair of these. I'm hoping that they will be a better fit than I usually get with in-earphones as they come with different sizes of earpiece.

Any comments or better suggestions before I go ahead? I know that I would get a better result with proper headphones held on with a headband, but I want something smallish and light-weight.

TIA.

I use SkullCandy inner ear things (about £40) - they're not noise cancelling but hte design means there's not very much sounds leakage into your ears from the outside world.

The ones you've indicated are supposed to rock though!.

Thanks GeekBoy (love your name, very appropriate to the topic ). I've had a quick look at the SkullCandy ones, and they're very pretty, and got quite good reviews, but I'm a little put off by so many reviewers saying that they feel odd until you get used to them given that I generally don't get on with in-ear.

I'm rather drawn to having earphones that "rock" , even if the rest of me is rather more "wobble" than "rock".

what is your budget - i have a pair of Etymotic ER6i and they are excellent but with all passive noise reducing earphones, they work but sealing the ear canal and therefore they need to have a snug fit. i found for the first week i could feel them but since then i don't notice them.

My budget is as little as possible MrCSWS. I won't be using them all that much, less than an hour a day I imagine, and I lose things easily so I don't want to spend a lot.

Also I suspect that I have quite a small ear canal and the ER6i seems to come in a one-size-fits-all format. And I'm definitely put off by the prospect of having to change filters which will be especially difficult as I will almost certainly have mislaid the spare filters and the special tool by the time they need to be changed. There are some great reviews for it on Amazon though.

I also have small ears, and they give you different sized pieces to fit. the small ones have only two flanges instead of three for the larger size

also, if you really want to blow any budget you had, you can get custom ear moulds made!

As far as the filters go, the filters+tool (which i don't use - if you have a bit of fingernail that works fine) fit in the case you get with it.