Headphones, Looking for replacements... Options

[Differenciam]

When I was short on money, I got $20 sony behind the ear headphones. They sounded pretty good, but

1) There is an "underwater" effect. Sorta like what you hear in MP3 artifacting at 112k CBR. No clarity.

2) Hissing.

3) Sounds very generic, like I have two tin cans on my ears.

I'm now looking for some new headphones. What's good? I'm sick of having headphones that themselves artifact and I think it's a bad MP3 until I check and see a WAV file playing. I tried some $40 ones my friend had, they were average koss ones, they sounded tons better. It sounded like I was hearing it for the first time, but I know there has to be better.

I'm looking in the range of below $100. What would be a good brand? I know there are a lot of rip-off headphones that sound like crap and just put the price up. Also, I don't want them to be absolutely huge. They can be big, but not the size of my head or anything like that, and I need them to be a bit durable.. Thanks