I prefer IEMs with lots of treble and very little bass for listening to spoken word audiobooks.   I have two sets of etymotic er6i that had the perfect sound for my purpose, but they both stopped working due to breakage of the wire at the jack.  I'm currently using a set of phonak, but they...

I am in my upper 50s and have significant hearing loss in the upper frequencies. For example, I have a hard time hearing women's voices, or the piccolo part in "Stars and Stripes Forever". I use my iPod primarily to listen to audiobooks and have worn out the cheap earbuds that came with them...