Sound distortion playing music with some headphones

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I have found some strange behaviour that i'm hoping someone else can test out on their Galaxy S.

I have found that some headphones seem to work fine with the phone for music playing but others result in the sound being distorted with the vocals being very faint as if the left and right channel are cancelling each other out (with vocals generally being on left and right channel).

The packaged Samsung headphones appear to work properly although the quality seems average. I tried my iPhone headphones but these resulted in the strange sound distortion described above. I also tried a pair of cheap Sennheiser which were a free give away with a purchase from Richer Sounds and they worked well. Another pair of no-name cheap headphones exhibited the same distortion problems as the iPhone headphones.

Oddly, the FM radio sounded ok with all the headphones, it's just the music player that has the problem. I have also tried a couple of other music apps including the doubletwist player to rule out the software.

I'm considering taking it back to the shop to swap for a replacement. I'd be grateful if anyone could try out some headphones (particularly iPhone ones) on their Galaxy S and report their results to see if this is just a quirk with my phone or the Galaxy S in general.

Many Thanks :)

I just need some clarification because I know that a headset, and not headphones, is delivered with the Iphone. If it was a headset then I might suspect that different Iphones use different polarity as opposed to Samsung. Try out the Samsung headset on the Iphone.

EDIT:
Obviously not the problem. I must have skipped over the radio experience.

I can't post a link to it, but I remembered that GSMArena did a thorough review of the SGS. If you find your way to it, go to page 6 and see the sound chart at the bottom. SGS is superior in sound to iPhone. Perhaps the iPhone headset/headphones and the cheap ones are not sufficient for the SGS? I'm guessing :-p

I had a similar experience when I tried to use the Samsung Spica headset on my HTC Hero. It seems that it might be a difference in polarity as suggested above.

Does all the headsets that give distorted sounds have a microphone on them? (E.g. not headphones)

the iPhone's headphones have extremely high distortion regardless of the media using to play them. The SGS is probably just overpowering them because they are very loud headphones as well/easily powered.

No it's nothing to do with them being overpowered.

I have an expensive pair of etymotic in ear headphones that are exhibiting the very same problem. Strangely I found a fix. They have a microphone on them and pressing in the answer button on them seems to fix the problem. I have taped the button down now and everything works perfectly. The second that button is released though, everything goes back to being faint, muffled and distorted.

Odd!

PS. This isn't just with the music player. I noticed it first watching a video.

It sounds like Samsung has their own way of producing the 3.5mm port with regards to the microphone support.

The Samsung headset distorts music on my HTC Hero.
The HTC headset distorts music on my gfs Galaxy Spica

To be clear, are you saying the problem only affects headsets with microphones? I have etymotic er4p headphones and it would be a deal breaker if they didn't work right with this phone.

If its only showing up in the media player, check that you havent enabled the 5.1 button in the the top right of the player. This can really screw with the sound and entire frequency ranges can be lost. I'm guessing this is whats happening.

The default headphones work fine for me if a little tinny, but with my Senheissers, the results are very pleasing. Apart from a slight gap between tracks that should seemlessly play through, I prefer using it to my iPod Touch. Being able to change tracks and volume without unlocking is a nice feature.

I threw my iPod headphones out years ago, they're the most ridiculous design ever, with the cable tapping the inside sleeve all the time when you walk or run.

Originally Posted by k2snowboards88

To be clear, are you saying the problem only affects headsets with microphones? I have etymotic er4p headphones and it would be a deal breaker if they didn't work right with this phone.

It sounds like that the problem is with headsets with microphones, yes. Not sure if it happens with all 3rd party headsets w/ mic though.

Considering you have etymotic, and ClownShoes a few posts up have problems with this brand, I guess you're out of luck unless you wanna tape the answering button like he did.

The er4p is just headphones, so it sounds like i'm in luck.