Good headphones and generic headphones difference?

[Moshiiii]

My sony earbuds broke today and im bummed out. Ive done alot of searching on old threads and it seems like in a $100 price range the V-Moda Vibe or Shure is the way to go. My question is whats the difference between the $100 headphones and my $40 headphones I had. I use my headphones at work and there usually loud machinery behind me and I use to run in my sonys. Im thinking of just picking up a cheap pair for running in.

 

[72930]

The difference was big enough that I decided to shell out for a bigger HD so I could re-encode my music now I could hear the difference in bitrates...

 

[MikeyTree]

If you use them a lot in noisy environments, it's also worth it to buy some sound isolating/cancelling phones.

Regular earbuds damage your hearing if you have to have them constantly turned up to high volumes to hear the sound overtop of ambient noise. If your phones isolate noises or actively negate them, then you can turn it to lower volumes and still hear it, with the added bonus of having better sound quality because you're not competing witn background noise.

I have Shure e2cs ($71 on Amazon), and they're fantastic. They quiet the environment, and also have superb bass and general sound quality.