I usually take a different approach on this:
The earbuds on my Nano clone crapped out after about a month of use at full volume, but it was the drivers which broke, not the jack or cable, so i bought a cheap stereo handsfree (a SPV C500 one, cost me $8 ), popped open the earpieces (rubber caps yay, really easy to remove), desoldered the original cable, put in and soldered the cable from my crapped out Chipod earbuds, plugged them in and tada!
I was literally blown away by the quality of the sound. After setting the EQ to Jazz, i actually noticed that
this thing actually has bass! Overall, i'm very impressed.
So don't spend a lot of money on fancy brand-name earbuds, as your average mobile handsfree kit is about as good. Older Nokia handsfree kits are best, the ones which have a 2.5mm jack, not the ones which connect the same way a data cable does. Once i can get my hands on one i'll post a tutorial on hacking those open to solder a different cable without breaking the drivers inside. 8)