I'm looking for an ear mic / earbud. I'll be hooking it up to my
computer, any interface is ok with me. Main function is going to be
playing music.
Ear buds?

For not a lot of money:

Sony EX-70 ear buds - Bright but clean, Very private with good inherent
rejection of outside noises.

I have some excellent sennheiser's i swear by. Why i cant remember
their model number, i do not know. *shrug*. I was trying to indicate
that whatever solution i get should be capable of playing sound as well
as recieving.

After that, voice recognition.

No experience.

Very occasionally for realtime conversations.

A completely different problem than your first two items. Usually needs a
radically different approach.

By virtue of it being VOX, as opposed to approaches which can be PTT?
Thats the only difference i can think of, from my admitantly naive
understanding. Good sound out should be good sound out, quality voice
recogition should parallel- to some extent- voice capture.

There's two pretty much opposite needs i have for this. First, it
needs to be able to handle whisper cases. I'd like to be able to
take brief notes with this system while in class.

You have zero experience with the current SOTA in voice recognition, right?
I think that if you had any real-world experience with the slings and arrows
of voice recognition you'd be laughing at yourself right now.

I'm so naive i dont even know what SOTA is!

But yes, whisper case of text transcription is a bit excessive. I'm not
entirely sure why i listed it, must've been the time of night. Voice
reckognition of text is going to be least use. Any whisper cases I'll
have I'll simply need to record such that I can at least tell whats
being said. 99% of voice rec will be a 10 - 40 word dictionary of
commands. Based on my experience last year working on a StrongARM based
PDA with horrible sound input, the worst imaginable mic, and a two bit
voice rec. program, I really cant imagine I'm demanding that much.

I'm going to be using a full blown computer for voice reckognition,
allowing some liberties in post processing and the benefit of top of the
line software.

Then on the other
hand, I do a good bit of biking (the pedal kind) and would like for
whatever solution i get to work while biking, both in terms of being
able to deal with noise and providing enough volume to hear what's
happening.

I think its pretty well known that figuratively having your cake and eating
it too is impossible.

The signal to noise ratio should remain tolerable (remarkably close) in
both accounts. This problem has been solved by many units, so I'm
heard. The problem is dynamic range. Which is classically far less of
a problem.

I'm vaguely considering a bluetooth device. the HBH-60 would be the
absolute upper limit for bulkiness I could accept. The nokia looks
decent. The Bluespoon digital is just too expensive, but man does it
ever look sweet. I'm highly skeptical that i'd get half decent music
listening with thse devices.

I am too. I don't really see enough data rate for perfectionist listening.

I do not want to have to push a button
to talk! I also need something which will stay affixed to my head,
doesnt have to endure serious abuse, but should let me rotate my head
ariously. Lastly, its just another battery to charge. This last
problem i can cope with, but the othersare serious barriers to entry
for me.

Rather than trying to solve three of the thorniest audio-related problems of
the early part of the 21st century for $1.98, maybe you should get some
inexpensive experience with portable listening and see where that takes you.

I think a lot of these problems are solved with a decent bone induction
ear mic. I have no information but what dribbel I can dig up on the
internet about these devices unfortuantely, no real experience. The
main question seems to be how adequate their vox operation is, and what
sound quality they give for the user.

Laptop and various sound input peripherials are en-route, and being
ordered. As someone who cant move ten feet without my music though, I'd
like to say I have some small grounds for experience. But hopefully
this will give me a lot more.

I am willing to spend $350 or so, IF the solution meets my needs. It
better be damned good for $350.

Matt