I’ve long touted the Sony MDR-EX51LP Headphones as the best 20 bucks you could spend to radically improve your iPod experience.  They arguably have 85% of the quality of The premium Shure E2Cs at a third of the price.  Sony recently released the  Sony MDREX85LP as a mid-tier offering for those of us who can’t justify the price of their high tier MDR-EX90LP model.  The 85s are just outstanding!  They have all the deep bass one would expect from an in-ear model, but they also bring the crisp highs and a crystal clear midrange that rivals those large studio headphones that make you look like Princess Leia.  The design is sort of hit and miss with the peculiar proportion that makes them look like they are somewhat broken, but the detail of the chrome aluminum turned face is quite elegant.  Now if only they could come up with a naming system that didn’t make their products sound like evil supercomputers from the land of Zod.