So wait, I'm confused: which are you using? The regular Moray with a single ring (three contact points) on the connector or the Moray+ with two rings (4 contact points)?
The old pair (the one I was using when I made this report) was a Moray+. It came with an adaptor that would split the single plug into two plugs: One for regular sound, one for the mic, as well as adaptors that would let you plug that adaptor into a PSP or NDS:
The replacement pair I'd bought (again, I knew the Moray+ would be going soon as the rubber shield around where the wire goes into the base has completely split) were regular Morays, however. Upon testing those, audio completely worked - and then I noticed one thing that I had gotten used to on the morays: There's a thick little bit of plastic on the cord leading to the right earbud, that is not there on the regular Morays. That bit missing actually is what reminded me that old pair was a Moray+ as opposed to the new pair being regular Morays.
Using the regular Morays, sound is 100% balanced and fine, with no audio issues (aside from having to keep the volume pretty low so I don't blow my eardrums out
) so the conclusion is that my Pandora's headphone jack is fine - the problem was that the Moray+'s regular jack uses that four-ring Apple TRRS, as seen here.
Only problem now is that I have to figure out a way to "mark" the earbuds so I know which one is L and which one is R. The little ring on the Moray+'s right earbud cord helped me do that. I'll get no such mercy on the regular Morays.
Yeah, unfortunate. 4 years ago when the Pandora was designed it wasn't a problem, Apple wasn't nearly as pervasive as it is today. It's not something that can be fixed though, not without a soldering iron and steady hands. A P2 will almost definitely have the ability to switch between the two since it's pretty easy at the hardware design stage, or they'll just drop microphone support entirely.
Mmm, it'd be a bad idea for them to drop microphone support, I'd say. While it would be mostly a gimmick, it would be essential for some DS games being playable, for example, and I'd think that by the time they're ready to release a whole new revision as opposed to a refresh, most people would be looking to see if DS is able to be emulated at good speeds. (I haven't tested it on my 1 GHz admittedly, but considering it can stutter even on PS1 games at 1.1 GHz, I'd not place the odds on being too good.
)
As noted above.. Pandora audio is actually pretty good; the problem is Apple has _Really bad_ audio (which is very surprising) and many other cheapo companies following suit.
Given Apple typically likes to have some shiny in there, and made their name here with iPods, it seems very surprising they have a genral poor attitude towards audio.
Witness:
- iTunes. Just a piece of garbage, most can agree
- Early edition iPods and phones - with the sunken connector, specifically made so only Apple (at the time) earbuds/phones would work; after a year or two when everyone else was pumping out adaptors and Apple nolonger coudl use it as a lead, they went to the standard jack form. Basicly, if you had $500 headphones.. too bad, despite your being perfect Apple audience.. too bad, use shitty earbuds only!
- Early on, Apple deliberately obfuscating the stereo bluetooth profiles; again, trying to give themselves an edge .. clearly anticompetitve
- iphones etc .. fairly poor audio chip, to this day
Just bizarre stance.
But then, most people know Stve Jobs was an asshole; a brilliant asshole, but nonetheless.. a guy who parks in handicapped parking spots.
jeff
Apple is a mixed bag, but I really hated their attempt to appear "hip" and trendy over the last dozen or so years. Steve Jobs was, as you said, a genius but also an asshole - The "Mac vs. PC" ads really drove me insane, and to this day I still look at Apple as the company that'll sell you a $750 PC for $1399. At the same time, people of my age (kids of the 80s and 90s, which I think would include a vast majority of the people who will buy the Pandora in the first place
) pretty much grew up on Apple II and early Macintosh models in grade school, And obviously they're capable of jerk things like that TRRS swap, to the point that other companies have had to mimic the way they do it just to avoid a massive amount of complaints, since obviously the goal there was to make the competition sound "bad" and persuade the user to buy pricey, genuine, hiliariously bad Apple earbuds.
But we will have people who will come in using the things. The fact I got that kind of response shows this problem isn't unknown to the Pandora community, but as it turns out, I became very useful in pointing out that it isn't just Apple earbuds (I've never owned an iPod or iPhone in my life and don't plan to - now that I fixed my audio, Rockbox on the Pandora is mighty fine
), but the fact that headphone makers are making this change in order to keep compatability and, thus, sales, means that future development of the Pandora should take this sad fact into account. It either needs to be some kind of user DIP, or some kind of converter plug provided, or simply just making it able to detect what kind of TRRS plug is plugged in through some kind of diagnostic/tester and able to convert itself to the "right" pinout on startup. Like I said, this was the first device where I had this problem, so either my DSi XL, PSP Vita and PSP accounted for Apple's TRRS and assumed it, or else they were able to detect and switch those jacks to it appropriately.
