Listening to portable headphones in stores

[Juliesinar]

Good Evening,

I have had an old pair of sony headphones for years but a couple of days ago they broke so I'm grudgingly looking for a new pair. My old pair were a clip on type, but I'm also considering ear bud and inner ear types, to use with my ipod Nano.

I went to a Sony store today and was told I could not listen to any of them due to hygiene reasons so I could only look at them through the blister packs, having no clue whatsoever which might sound best to me. I can understand their point but would have thought they could have demo models that could perhaps have some sort of very thin disposable slip on sleeve (which hopefully wouldn't distort the sound significantly) so that you could listen to them.

Has anyone found a way of getting demo's of these type of things?. Some of the Shure ones cost hundreds of pounds, do people really buy these without even listening to them?

Julie