Audio sounds muddy unless mic button is pressed


Joined
Aug 15, 2011
Messages
495
Location
Bristol, England
Hi

Does anyone else have this issue? Headphones with a mic button and vol control produce a muddy sound unless you hold down the mic button!

Driving me mad
 
Hi

Does anyone else have this issue? Headphones with a mic button and vol control produce a muddy sound unless you hold down the mic button!

Driving me mad

Known issue, Pandora was in development before or around the time iPhone barely came out, the standard used on every other phone at the time had the ground ring in a normal sane place. However Apple decided to swap the Mic and Ground rings to force iPhone users to only buy their standard of headsets. Eventually due to the popularity of the iPhone all other manufacturers swapped to the Apple Standard.

So on a modern headset pushing the Mic button will give a path to ground through the Microphone, which will clear up the sound. I bought this adapter long ago that swapped these pins for you, but I can't find anything like it sold anymore. ended up losing the adapter, so my current setup I have a zip tie holding the Mic Button down. I suppose making one could be easy if you source the right jack and plugs, also if you don't need the Microphone functional I believe a 3 pin headphone extender will also work to clear up the sound as the ground ring is wider and spans the ground and mic ring.

Luckily with the Pyra, there is a chip that detects if a headset is plugged in, it has a ground sense circuit that knows to switch between the two standards depending where the ground ring is.
 
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Eventually due to the popularity of the iPhone all other manufacturers swapped to the Apple Standard.
Are you sure they actually swapped and did not just start to use ICs that could sense the order of contacts and switch around the lines, like the Pyra?
 
Maybe that's more common these days, but for a few years there were people complaining they they couldn't use their own headset on their new android phone, or their new headset wouldn't work with their old phone, as in this case. So they swapped after the iphone came out for sure, but maybe they're more flexible these days, if they feel it's worth supporting old headsets any more.

Personally all of my 3.5" jack headsets use the apple standard, as they're post iPhone. The only headsets I've got that use the old standard use 2.5" jacks so are mostly useless these days.
 
Are you sure they actually swapped and did not just start to use ICs that could sense the order of contacts and switch around the lines, like the Pyra?
pretty sure, for a while many referred to the Old standard as the Nokia standard and the apple. Think when Samsung starting using Apple's style everyone else fell in line.
 
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