Why some 3.5mm audio jack does not play audio well on smartphones?

Why some 3.5mm audio jack does not play audio well on smartphones?

Well I have a mobile phone with the standard 3.5 mm jack socket and the audio plays well with the earphone that came along with it. But sometime back I lost it. So I bought another one. Now this one does not play audio well. The sound has noise and sounds like a cheap karaoke. I tried another head phone I have for my laptop and it is the same. I was wondering why.

As per research on the internet, there are generally two 3.5mm jack types (though there are more) used in mobile phones – one with 3 conductors (2 plastic rings in between) and another with 4 conductors to support microphone (3 rings plastic rings in between).

The one I bought (and not playing audio well) on the smartphone has 3 conductors and the original phone's earphone had 4 conductors. So the most conclusive reason was that the pin contacts do not match with the socket on the phone.

So if you are not getting a good audio signal from your device, check your 3.5mm pin for number of conductors and rings and see if it matches with what your device is expecting.

A standard 3.5 mm jack with 3 conductors is as shown below:

It is abbreviated as a TRS jack, taking initials starting from the tip of the 3.5mm audio jack.

Tip	Ring	Sleeve
Left Audio	Right Audio	ground

Modern jacks used in many audio appliances comes with 4 conductors, with an additional ring – TRRS (Tips, Ring 1, Ring 2, Sleeve).

TRRS Standards: 

CTIA – used by Apple, HTC, latest Nokia, latest Samsung, latest Sony (2012+), most Android phones.

Tip	Ring 1	Ring 2	Sleeve
Left Audio	Right Audio	Ground	Microphone

OMTP, another standard where the ground and microphone appears on ring 2 and sleeve respectively has been accepted as a national Chinese standard YDT 1885-2009.

Tip	Ring 1	Ring 2	Sleeve
Left Audio	Right Audio	Microphone	Ground

So, if you have a smartphone and your are about to buy a new earphone, just to buy the same or from the same brand or make sure you buy an earphone that has the same number or conductors / rings. Otherwise, there might be poor audio sound from the earphone.