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[Q] Standard Earbuds not compatible with my Ears

So I just got my Nexus S yesterday, I love it, but... right about now, I'm feeling extremely dumb. Either that, or I have a horrible ear canal for listening to music.
I've tried everything to get the earbuds that came with the Nexus S to stay in my ear, but it just won't work. I've even watched YouTube videos to figure out how to get it to fit my ear. Something's wrong. No matter how deep in the ear canal I stick the earbuds, they won't stay for longer than 5 seconds. The slightest movement causes them to fall off.
Am I doing something wrong, or is this a common problem?
Is there a way to reduce the radius on the earbuds so I can try fitting them better in my ear? I really want to start using these standard headphones. They look extremely nice, and the rubber tips really enhance the sound, at least for the few seconds I manage to hold it in my ear. I don't want to go back to using my crappy Motorola ones. Help!

I was like this at the start when i first started to use in-ear earphones. I had to kinda force them into my ears. It was annoying at first but now its natural. Dunno if you are the same as me though

same problem here! I cant figure those damn things out lol. I had to go back to my iphone headset.

What headphone models have been comfortable for you?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Had this same problem with the last few handsets I've had. The solution I found was to get some of those foam pads for the earbuds. The friction between the foam and your skin keeps the earbuds solidly in your ear. Without the foam, my earbuds constantly fell out which drove me insane.

i have small ears too, i hate ear buds headphones as it causes a lot of pain after 15 min when using over sized ear buds, which are "normal" sizes for big ear peoples
very few products over mini ear buds (normal sizes for us), like a couple of Sony Bluetooth headsets i found in the past.
so i always use headsets that have an ear hook

I find the cable causes the most problems, If I have the cable exiting downwards, I cannot push the earbud in far enough. The only way to get a good fit is to turn them upside down and have the cables looped over the top of my ears.

Haadkoe said:
Had this same problem with the last few handsets I've had. The solution I found was to get some of those foam pads for the earbuds. The friction between the foam and your skin keeps the earbuds solidly in your ear. Without the foam, my earbuds constantly fell out which drove me insane.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you mean those black foam pads that used to come with iPods? Do you know where I can find one nowadays? Or is there an easy way to improvise?
And thanks for the response guys, assured me that I'm not the only one to have problems with earbuds.

If you're using in-ear headphones there are 2 solutions:
Comply Foam Tips - Super comfortable but a little bit too expensive for me considering you have to change them every month (or two).
Sony Hybrid Tips Comes in 4 different sizes so you can mix-and-match if your ear canals are not the same size. Very comfortable and durable.
NOTE: There are some "Replacement Sony Silicone Ear Tips" on eBay, most (or all) of them are not the genuine ones. Quality wise is OK but the material is harder than original Sony Hybrid Tips so they may not as fit and comfortable as the real ones.

I thought it was just me I'm living with em until i have enough cash to buy a nice new pair of cans.
Sent from my Google.

you can get some rubber ear bud, the one that came standard is too big for me, so i got some sony ones, they are quite expensive, but you can get the non sony one's, works just as good, but much cheaper.
non sony one set USD 0.64
sony from most country set of 3 (S.M.L) USD 10
sony from japan two set either XS, SS, S, M, L and other sizes in between USD 5.75

Try
I am an earbud addict, try these J3Ms: http://earbudreview.org/earbud-reviews/jbuds-j3j3m-earbud-review/ They come with different earbud pieces so if you have a big ear (it seems like), then you can swap them out for the big earbud pieces.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, but is there anything I can do with these default ones?

EonHawk said:
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, but is there anything I can do with these default ones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as mention, get some new earpads.

suksit said:
If you're using in-ear headphones there are 2 solutions:
Comply Foam Tips - Super comfortable but a little bit too expensive for me considering you have to change them every month (or two).
Sony Hybrid Tips Comes in 4 different sizes so you can mix-and-match if your ear canals are not the same size. Very comfortable and durable.
NOTE: There are some "Replacement Sony Silicone Ear Tips" on eBay, most (or all) of them are not the genuine ones. Quality wise is OK but the material is harder than original Sony Hybrid Tips so they may not as fit and comfortable as the real ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can vouch for comply tips. I use them with klipsch s4.. Outstanding.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk

DIY Custom Speaker Replacement [Pics]

EDIT: After a few days of comparing sound quality with a working Nexus 7, I decided I could do better than the Eee PC speakers. I have another set of better speakers I ordered directly from a components distributor on the way, and I'll post an update when they come in. Link
I'm another unlucky Nexus 7 owner to have their speakers blow out through normal usage. Unfortunately none of the temporary fixes seemed to work, and it's entirely possible that I made my speakers worse through trying them. I had crackling on both speakers, and at any volume. So, I submitted a RMA to Asus about two weeks ago and never received a response.
Then I got the bright idea of removing the speakers altogether to see if I could shoehorn together a custom solution. I'm documenting my findings here in case any of you want to give it a shot yourself and don't particularly care about voided warranties. Yes, you are voiding your warranty simply by taking apart your device. And no, I don't think you should try this if you're afraid of soldering irons. For those of you that are comfortable handling burning hot metal rods, this should otherwise be a pretty simple process. I've burned myself countless times, and even I was able to complete this mod in about 45 minutes.
The first step is that you need to buy a set of small laptop speakers, preferably something that has been gutted from a netbook. Speakers come in all shapes and sizes, so ideally you want something as small as possible and doesn't require much power. Impedance and resistance values are negligible, since the worst thing that could happen when you plug in slightly larger speakers with different values is that your device isn't as loud as before. Once I was ready, I went on eBay and started looking at Asus Eee PC speakers, since I thought the odds are good that Asus re-uses a lot of connectors and speaker sizes in their devices (later I found out this was not entirely true). I also did some Googling just to get an idea of what kind of sound quality I could expect from Eee speakers, and most people seemed to think they were okay. I ended up with some speakers from an Eee PC 1005HAB.
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Big thanks to Lokheed for this steal at just over $5 with free shipping. That's half the cost to ship the entire Nexus 7 back to Asus for repair.
The connector looked similar enough to the original for the Nexus 7 speakers that I thought maybe I could get away with doing zero soldering, but unfortunately when they got here the connector was easily twice the size. The other problems were that the pin layout on the connector was different (Vcc, Gnd, Vcc, Gnd versus the Nexus 7's Vcc, Gnd, Gnd, Vcc), and the solder joints for the speakers were hidden inside of the plastic casing. The speakers were much bigger overall, too, which meant things were going to get tricky for ensuring there was enough clearance to actually install them.
This is the point where I realized I had taken a gamble and was on the verge of losing, though luckily it was only a $5 gamble. I immediately set to work on trying to pry apart the plastic housing to remove as much extra plastic as I could. The housing itself was held together with some epoxy, so I had to run a blade through it before prying. Then to get it started, I used a pair of pliers as a makeshift nutcracker to crack one side open so I could fit a spudger in to start prying it apart.
The empty shells from the backs of the speakers. I have no idea why one of them seemed to be more difficult than the other. Luckily without the plastic housing, the speakers ended up being just barely thin enough to still fit. I took some tin snips to the edges and trimmed off as much as I could without breaking the frame on the membranes, then I just stripped the original speaker connector wires and soldered directly to the speakers.
When soldering, just de-solder the old wires from the speakers first and take note of the black vs red/white wires. The 7's speaker wires use red for Vcc and brown for Gnd, so solder the brown wire to where the black wire was, and the red wire to the other one. Simple!
Finally, I powered on my device and ran through a few Youtube videos to test that the speakers worked. Success!
After that I just secured them in place with a dab of hot glue and sealed everything back up. I will say that the speakers are definitely not as loud as the originals, which is to be expected since they're bigger and the Eee PC obviously has more juice to drive the speakers. However, they are a bit clearer than the originals, and it's much better than waiting around for Asus to put another set of speakers in that will probably blow out after a month again. Later on I might consider buying a few extra sets of original speakers in case I get tired of the low volume, but for right now I'm satisfied.

Would using Volume+ with these speakers increase the volume but keep good quality?

cesar424 said:
Would using Volume+ with these speakers increase the volume but keep good quality?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't seem to get Volume+ to work with the stock ROM. That said, it could also be a problem with sound reflection, since I tried flipping it over and it's definitely really loud on the other side.
I also put my girlfriend's 7 next to mine for comparison, and I'm starting to notice that the sound quality isn't actually as good. I've got another set of speakers on order from Mouser Electronics, which should be a lot nicer. I'll post my results when they come in.

Off Topic:
We should burn all device designers responsible for putting speakers on a multimedia device behind the device.
I mean cone on, would they turn their Hifi speakers to the wall instead of to their couch?
Edit: Even my 190 $ chinese tablet (Yuandao N101 RK3066 Dualcore, 1GB RAM, 32GB flash, 31GB microSD, HDMI, Android 4.1) has stereo speakers on the front side in better quality than asus'. I don't even complain about all the absent ports ASUS/Google failed to integrate, but dear Asus please make sure you use high quality for the parts which are present.

underlines said:
Off Topic:
We should burn all device designers responsible for putting speakers on a multimedia device behind the device.
I mean cone on, would they turn their Hifi speakers to the wall instead of to their couch?
Edit: Even my 190 $ chinese tablet (Yuandao N101 RK3066 Dualcore, 1GB RAM, 32GB flash, 31GB microSD, HDMI, Android 4.1) has stereo speakers on the front side in better quality than asus'. I don't even complain about all the absent ports ASUS/Google failed to integrate, but dear Asus please make sure you use high quality for the parts which are present.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, I agree. But not only BEHIND a device, I'm also irritated by the fact it's off-centered. Watching movie in landscape makes the sound came only from the right or left side...... make it stereo and put speakers on BOTH side!
Secondly, your $190 tablet has Jelly Bean???? Where can I buy it? lol

Asus tried facing the speakers out the front with the TF101. The speakers were behind the screen and made the screen vibrate to make the sound seem like it was coming out the front. It was an interesting concept, but overall sounded kind of muffled because they were still pretty crappy speakers to begin with. I do like that the Yuandao N101 has small cutouts in the glass on the front, but in turn that makes the screen less durable.
It would make more sense to just manufacture a smaller piece of glass and have the entire bezel made of plastic or aluminum, much like how 99% of portable devices before the iPad were made (GameBoy, DS, PSP, etc.). But instead most companies and consumers are obsessed with the design of the iPad, and so all the competitors work on ways to replicate that instead.
If cost were not a problem, we'd be using electrostatic speakers that are integrated into the screen, thereby keeping the iPad-like glass panel and getting exceptional sound quality at the same time. However, nobody wants to spend $1000 on a tablet yet, so we're stuck with $2 integrated plastic speakers that blow out after a week.

So Asus wanted to charge you to ship the device back even though its a manufacturer defect
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Any other option for replacement speakers that may work better? My speaker blew the other day
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Mine blew yesterday. A quick search will lead u to a site where they sell OEM n7 speaker assemblies for around 25$. Just ordered one today plan to crack my n7 open takin out three screws and doing it my damn self. Not waiting on Asus or google for repairs or replacement. Plus I don't wanna deal with having to unroot pay shipping wait without a device, finally get it back, re root it and set it up again how I want it. In two day when parts arrive 5 mins later ill have working speakers. Then I plan to get external speakers to avoid this in the future. Hopefully someone will find some decent replacement speakers that will fit and not blow out on normal volume settings

Any one know if Asus will sell replacement speakers? Since mine have just gone

WarningHPB said:
Any one know if Asus will sell replacement speakers? Since mine have just gone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's at least once place selling it, they look to be around $30. Problem is since it's not "user replicable" I doubt Asus would sell direct even if they had it as a billable part number.

underlines said:
Off Topic:
I mean cone on, would they turn their Hifi speakers to the wall instead of to their couch?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhm, they would if their last name was Bose.

khaytsus said:
There's at least once place selling it, they look to be around $30. Problem is since it's not "user replicable" I doubt Asus would sell direct even if they had it as a billable part number.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah I meant to say speaker assembly but yeah I'm wanna just get the assembly and replace mine since its a lot more hassle RMAing it

Miami_Son said:
Uhm, they would if their last name was Bose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy Our S***ty Equipment

my 3g has now got terrible sound coming from the left speaker only. any updates from anyone on where to get replacements our alternatives?
on how to force all audio to go through the right channel?
btw I blame dice player and its 400 percent audio boost

Sage said:
my 3g has now got terrible sound coming from the left speaker only. any updates from anyone on where to get replacements our alternatives?
on how to force all audio to go through the right channel?
btw I blame dice player and its 400 percent audio boost
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Left one seems to be the only one that blows. Mine went while using MX and 200% boost. Just received a replacement N7 from google...
Saw a vid on youtube with a fix.....
Personally I snipped a piece (1/4x1/4x1/4 roughly) from a mattress pad and placed it over the offending speaker.

I love how this guy is a "technician" yet he's:
Confusing flathead and philips
Using a flathead to open a plastic back case
Suggesting glueing connector half-way in place as a fix
Sliding the tablet around face-down on the table surface
Suggesting cutting wires to disconnect the 'blown" speaker
Informercial
fail.

khaytsus said:
I love how this guy is a "technician" yet he's:
Confusing flathead and philips
Using a flathead to open a plastic back case
Suggesting glueing connector half-way in place as a fix
Sliding the tablet around face-down on the table surface
Suggesting cutting wires to disconnect the 'blown" speaker
Informercial
fail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Granted their all quick/temporary fixes at best, but do you have a better suggestion? Preferably a non warranty voiding one....

Mine blew from using the alarm clock and a standard tone. Pretty ridiculous and am buying a cheap bluetooth speaker to use in my room for movies and alarm. I sent it to Asus last week and delivery confirmation shows they just got it. Hope this is a quick turnaround.

Good afternoon everyone. My best regards to earlyberd for this post. I used the information herein to continue the project where it left off…even though it may not be entirely in the OP’s original direction. I bought the suggested speakers using earlyberd’s link to Mouser. I was able to fit these guys into the Nexus 7, but it took quite a bit of mod work (in my opinion). So, I will quickly share my craziness and fill in details if there is interest.
Attached Word doc has embedded pics. The un-links below are higher res.
Nexus framework milled out with a small Dremel engraving bit:
flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9080835754/
Speakers staged for fitment:
flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9078609129/
Everybody wired and working:
flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9080832736/
It is not apparent in the pictures, but I had to trim some of the ground plane off of the usb/audio jack circuit board to make everything fit. Some may get a queasy feeling at the thought of doing this. I would be happy to provide very detailed pictures for anyone interested.
Thanks.

Best headphones around???

Hiya, im interested in gettin another pair of headphones and was wondering which ones were decent for around the £80-£150 mark, i have a pair of beats by dre solo's at the moment but i feel i could maybe get a better pair for the price i am paying?
So was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what were a good brand to buy either from experience or whatever?
I listen to alot of rnb, hip hop and dance music, so if anyone has any suggestions id be happy to hear them
Thanks alot
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

Depends on if you actually want to hear your music or you want gimmicky EQ settings.

www.head-fi.org is your best bet.
Do you want actual headphones, or in-ears?

I've always been a fan of Skull Candy headphones. They are crystal clear.
Sent from my Thunderbolt using xda premium

i cant ever see myself paying that much money for a pair of headphones... absolutely ridiculous. I'm always happy with simple pair of headphones that will last a good while and serve its purpose. Don't see the point in paying so much money for something that could accidentally break as soon as you put it in your bag

RBarnett09 said:
I've always been a fan of Skull Candy headphones. They are crystal clear.
Sent from my Thunderbolt using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They're not horrible, but if you do your homework, you can spend $20-40 on headphones that sound better than the best Skull Candy headphones.
I spent $100 on my Shure SE215's. They've got a 2 year warranty dvd removable cables, in addition to fantastic sound for those who like some bass with strong mids. They sound 3 times as good as my old Klipsch S4i's.
No danger in buying high quality audio of you take care of it.

Sony MDR-7506
They've been the industry standard for almost 25 years for a reason.

I bought a pair of Ultimate Ears 700 some time back and am extremely pleased with them. First, look what the Head-Fi crowd think of them:
http://www.head-fi.org/products/ultimate-ears-700-noise-isolating-earphones
As you can see they come highly recommended! My other IEM's are Shure SE530's, which for a long time were the benchmark by which all other IEM's were measured. Unfortunately they are also clunky, cumbersome and not at all suitable for sports use, which is why i bought the UE 700's.
The sound characteristics between the two are very similar though, which is remarkable considering that the Shures cost between two and three times as much as the UE's. If you consider yourself to be appreciative of audiophile quality though, you won't be disappointed by these. They really punch above their weight! The Shures are lower impedence and therefore easier to drive, although the UE's aren't so high that they require amping. Most portable MP3 players should be capable of providing a sufficient volume for the listener using the UE's.
Returning to the sports angle, one of the biggest benefits to me is the compact nature of the UE's. They are tiny, yet despite that don't feel at all fragile or weak. Using Comply Foam Tips they remain wedged into my ear canal throughout a three hour gym session no matter what activity i'm doing. They can also be worn with the cord over the ear or hanging down. There's no benefit or drawback to either that i can feel, it's user preference only. Nice to have the choice though.
If in three years i'm looking for another pair of IEM's to buy, i'd buy another pair of the UE 700's for sure!

I considered those highly myself, but wanted a little more bass. I figure when I'm ready to buy my next pair, it'll be something similar to UE 900.
Gotta love Head-Fi. Tons of great information over there.

Note 2 compatible earphones with fully functional volume controls!

For someone coming from an iPhone to the Note 2, one of the most distressing things is the lack of earphones with functioning volume buttons. I say this because everyone with an iPhone is used to having a big selection of working headsets that have these controls. Because of the wide variety of android phones and their conficting standards, manufacturers have evidently decided it not worthwhile trying to make android compatible earphones with volume controls since they have assumed they'd have to be device specific, and instead opted for a few single button ones. I found this amazing, incomprehensible and unacceptable. You see, I live with my earphones. Besides listening to music or streaming podcasts, I take all my calls with earphones so that I can keep my hands free, and reaching constantly into my pocket to change the volume won't do.
After a laborious search, I've found earphones that work with my Note 2 (ie 3 button ones with volume controls as well as the pause/play button), but they all have issues or problems from my point of view. Nevertheless, the simple answer starts with looking for ones made by HTC or Samsung. Unfortunately, the ones I found from HTC have really cheap speakers and place the mic/controls near your belly button! They also place the mic at the point where the speaker wires branch rather than the typical spot 6" from the right earpiece on its own wire, so winding up the extra wire is an awkward solution at best (I tried it, ughh!) The Samsung OEM ones that should have come with the phone (I'm on ATT and as everyone knows, they didn't include them in their packaging), are fine with respect to the placement of the mic, but the sound may be iffy for some and I find the volume controls too small and poorly placed - I'm often hitting the wrong button. For me though, there was also another worse problem. I know I'm in a minority here, but I can't stand in-ear sound isolating earbuds. (Note: by in-ear, I mean the type that have flexible plastic tips that snug down into the ear canal a bit.) I find them uncomfortable after a very short time, and when I take calls, I feel like I'm speaking under water, or like I have my fingers in my ears. I actually prefer hearing the environmental sound a bit rather than cutting it off. Stupid me, I just prefer the plain old iPhone earphones (not the new earpods). They're cheap, have ok sound with moderate bass, and do what I want. All you others who don't agree with me, don't despair since what I propose applies equally to you.
My final solution to this nasty impass was to clip off the HTC or Samsung earphones and solder on my old iPhone earpieces. I'm writing all this because I know there are a lot of people more or less in my situation, and I just want to encourage people that it really is not hard at all to do this if you're able to solder at all. And afaik, the same applies to people who prefer in-ear buds, or even hi quality ones. Most earpieces are pretty easy to disassemble - one might have to score/lever the joint a bit, but basically you just give a twist with a pliers to the piece nearest your ear that has the grill or holds the in-ear piece, and the speaker and its wired connections can be pulled out of the housing and have its connections exposed. I was confused at first by the iPhone earphones since when I clipped the wire and examined it, there seemed to be four wires going to each earpiece. I spoke to an audio engineer for advice (who designed circuits, cables etc for the audio industry for 40 years) and his basic take on it was the quality is all in the speakers not in the switch, so you really can just swap them, and the extra wires are just twisted around to support the functioning wires structurally - each speaker really has two wires.
Luckily for me, it cost me nothing extra to try this as I had already bought three different working sets off eBay at $5 - $8 each and I had my old iPhone ones (actually two broken sets - I just used the good speaker from each). Anyway, if anyone's interested below are pics of the three Note 2 compatible types I bought (use them to find ones to buy since links change). Remember, in the end I only needed them for the plug, working switch/mic, and wires - the speakers are thrown away. And also pics of a disassembled iphone earpiece as well as a finished hybrid. The one I did uses the white HTC earphones as a base. I of course shortened the wires going to the earpieces. I don't mind the Samsung one once in a while, so I plan to order another and when it arrives, alter it as a spare hybrid like the other - with iPhone earpieces.
There are several other ones out there that would probably do as well as the ones I bought, but they all have in-ear type earpieces so I didn't order them, and I can't vouch for their volume controls working. I'd guess several will. Sometimes android earphones apparently use the outer buttons to advance or rewind (next track/previous track) so watch out for those. I don't see the point of them since double click/triple click does that for me with all the audio players I've tried (Walkman, PowerAmp, Player Pro) and the volume controls are more important to me anyway. It's also difficult to tell from the eBay pictures if the mic/controls are near the belly button or not, and after buying two that had this design, I didn't feel like trying more at random. If anyone has ordered other ones and found the buttons work (FOR VOLUME CONTROLS!) and especially if they have the better, single wire mic layout, I'd be interested if you'd post the name and pics of what you've tried and found works.
Soldering tips: dip the wire ends in a tiny bit of alcohol and briefly burn off the nylon support strands and coating with a cigarette lighter before tinning the ends and then soldering. If you are timid, cut the wire near the speaker (1") rather than desoldering it. You can then test the whole thing out by twisting wires together rather than straight away soldering your new wires to the speakers. The joint can still be coiled up and hidden in the earpiece housing. It will also keep clear what color wire goes where and if you aren't good with soldering (like me) that also has the advantage of not risking making a total mess of the contacts on the speakers straight away! The "standard" earphone color code is Red pair on Right channel, Blue or Green on Left.
On a related issue on audio on the Note 2, I'd like to mention that I had to use the volume mod (I edited my own default_gain.conf - root required) so that the phone call volume, as well as streaming audio such you get with news apps, was high enough for me - though I also increased the volume for music as well. Also, I recommend using the Equalizer app from the Play store rather than Beats Audio to add some extra bass etc to the earphones since unlike Beats, it is a system wide EQ, so you can improve the sound of podcasts and phone calls as well as your music! Using it necessitates disabling all other EQs.
Love the Note 2 and this forum! Good Luck and I hope this helps someone!

Sorry, I only made it half way to the 2nd paragraph. That's a long post.

Didn't read you long post but from the title I use some MEE i9p's the mic works fine but since they don't have a volume button cant answer that part.

Dumbo53 said:
I say this because everyone with an iPhone is used to having a big selection of working headsets that have these controls. Because of the wide variety of android phones and their conficting standards, manufacturers have evidently decided it not worthwhile trying to make android compatible earphones with volume controls since they have assumed they'd have to be device specific, and instead opted for a few single button ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't Apple the odd one out here? Their inline remotes don't work in other devices, but an inline remote that works for android also works for blackberry devices. The inline remotes made for android devices all work for each android device.. what the buttons actually do is a different story. Oddly, for samsung, the ff and rw buttons control the volume in their devices instead.. but I think this is a more ideal usage of it. Since if you get a rom that has hold volume for ff or rw, you'll have double usage of the buttons. On HTC devices, they work as intended (ff and rw actually ff and rw).

I use these scull candys and they function properly...

Ok. So out of the replies so far most stated they didnt read it all since its rather lengthy. Props for honesty guys. I did read all of the post. The OP has done his or her homework and confirmed a few suspicions and answered a few questions I had about earbud controls. Along with a very educated way of asking us to give feedback on successful full volume controls and what breand or models we found worked.
I have been useing the Samsung buds that came with my wifes S3. So yea full control on every rom I have used thus far. Hybrid and Jedi.
Great post OP. Everyone else read the entire post before replying.

I just got the Motorola S11 Flex HD (Bluetooth headphones). They are sweat proof and designed for running and working out. They have a power button, multi-function button, a volume up and down button. I enjoy the freedom of being wireless, especially when running/working out.
Audio quality is ok, probably no worse than the standard headset the come with most devices. They don't compare to my quality headphones (Shure SE530, Klipsch X10). I'm sure you lose some audio quality when making the device sweat proof.
What I wasn't expecting was the built in mic to work as well as they did. I've made three phone calls and they all said I sounded fine and in fact better than my previous BT headset. Now this wasn't in windy or noisy conditions, but still better than I expected.

iahk said:
Oddly, for samsung, the ff and rw buttons control the volume in their devices instead.. but I think this is a more ideal usage of it. Since if you get a rom that has hold volume for ff or rw, you'll have double usage of the buttons. On HTC devices, they work as intended (ff and rw actually ff and rw).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's why I use a 3-button Samsung headphone set and a music player that uses long-press (or multi-press) of the answer/end button to skip tracks.

iahk said:
Isn't Apple the odd one out here? Their inline remotes don't work in other devices, but an inline remote that works for android also works for blackberry devices. The inline remotes made for android devices all work for each android device.. what the buttons actually do is a different story. Oddly, for samsung, the ff and rw buttons control the volume in their devices instead.. but I think this is a more ideal usage of it. Since if you get a rom that has hold volume for ff or rw, you'll have double usage of the buttons. On HTC devices, they work as intended (ff and rw actually ff and rw).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its because Apple made the 3rd pin on the headphone jack just a little lower so you can't use their headphones anywhere else except on an Apple device. It forces all the other OEM's to follow suit hence the "lack" of support for Android. Another silly game of having proprietary devices. Haven't you noticed that with there new "lightning" connector? The world is using microUSB Apple for goodness sake!
Because of that, I decided to drop the inline button management and went back to the old school way of doing things (manually), Klipsch Image X10's baby.
If I ever do decide to manage my music, I'll use a stereo bluetooth device with built-in audio controls.

Guys, I just bought these for $6.99, voila volume controls. Compared to the OEM ones that came with my friend's Sprint Note 2 and they are identical. Wish I could use my Klipsch over-ears but hey, these sound decent for the price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AW0FR3561

Sorry to all if my message got lost by making my post too long. The really short version of it is you can have your cake and eat it too. Afaik, the volume controls/mic on Apple or Samsung or Htc earphones all do the same thing but in slightly different ways and don't influence the sound quality of the speakers. It is pretty easy to clip off the cheap earphones from a Note 2 compatible set and replace them with the higher quality earpieces of your choice. The hybrid earphones I made are identical as far as my ears can tell to the unaltered Apple ones. I am really happy with them. If I found another set with much better quality (not inear ones), I wouldn't hesitate to do the same again.
So, themyst, you could simply cut off the Klipsch earpieces and solder them on to a Samsung set of wires if you wanted to, though I would be cautious and try carefully opening an earpiece assembly first to verify that there are only two wires going to the speaker before cutting anything!
@[-]awkeye, I could be wrong here, but I really don't think the incompatibility of iPhone headphones with Android has anything to do with the 3rd pin of the plug. I attach below a photo of the Samsung earphone jack (left) right next to the Apple one (right) for you to look for yourself. I think they are both standard 4 pin plugs.
My audio engineer friend believed that the problem is a proprietary IC on the tiny circuit board that controls the switch and mic. The two different switches I guess send different amounts or types of current (have a different impedance?) back to the phone. My guess is that it should be possible to interpret the Apple signals within Android via a software fix of some kind, though it might have to be low level, ie part of the OS.
In any case, I have also read that Android earphones themselves don't follow any standard and that causes a further problem for third part manufacturers. The first and fourth pins for example have their wires swapped in some Android models. So the wires that lead to the pins can be different, the switches can be different, but the wires that lead to the speakers should all be the same, or at least that was the case for all the earphones I cut up. It's part of the reason I made this post -- to try to get more definitive answers on this whole subject. If anyone comes across a different speaker wiring design, I would be interested to know.

If you want true 'hands free', then go bluetooth style.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

Yes I agree, a bluetooth headset with volume controls would be great, even ideal, though personally I don't like the wrap around designs. I suppose they are made that way to work with jogging. Perhaps I could get used to it as long as it didn't cut off the outside sound like your typical in-ear buds. Ideal for me would just be unobtrusive speakers that fit in your ears without any wires, but then how would you control the volume etc?

There are bluetooth ear buds with noise cancellation as well as volume control.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

Dumbo53 said:
Sorry to all if my message got lost by making my post too long. The really short version of it is you can have your cake and eat it too. Afaik, the volume controls/mic on Apple or Samsung or Htc earphones all do the same thing but in slightly different ways and don't influence the sound quality of the speakers. It is pretty easy to clip off the cheap earphones from a Note 2 compatible set and replace them with the higher quality earpieces of your choice. The hybrid earphones I made are identical as far as my ears can tell to the unaltered Apple ones. I am really happy with them. If I found another set with much better quality (not inear ones), I wouldn't hesitate to do the same again.
So, themyst, you could simply cut off the Klipsch earpieces and solder them on to a Samsung set of wires if you wanted to, though I would be cautious and try carefully opening an earpiece assembly first to verify that there are only two wires going to the speaker before cutting anything!
@[-]awkeye, I could be wrong here, but I really don't think the incompatibility of iPhone headphones with Android has anything to do with the 3rd pin of the plug. I attach below a photo of the Samsung earphone jack (left) right next to the Apple one (right) for you to look for yourself. I think they are both standard 4 pin plugs.
My audio engineer friend believed that the problem is a proprietary IC on the tiny circuit board that controls the switch and mic. The two different switches I guess send different amounts or types of current (have a different impedance?) back to the phone. My guess is that it should be possible to interpret the Apple signals within Android via a software fix of some kind, though it might have to be low level, ie part of the OS.
In any case, I have also read that Android earphones themselves don't follow any standard and that causes a further problem for third part manufacturers. The first and fourth pins for example have their wires swapped in some Android models. So the wires that lead to the pins can be different, the switches can be different, but the wires that lead to the speakers should all be the same, or at least that was the case for all the earphones I cut up. It's part of the reason I made this post -- to try to get more definitive answers on this whole subject. If anyone comes across a different speaker wiring design, I would be interested to know.
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Interesting, but I don't have any plans cutting up my 100 headphones. I can't believe some manufacturer in China hasn't made Samsung / Android compatible control adapters yet!

I have the zagg buds and they seem to work granted no forward / back but the button will play/pause and mute when in calls.

themyst said:
Guys, I just bought these for $6.99, voila volume controls. Compared to the OEM ones that came with my friend's Sprint Note 2 and they are identical. Wish I could use my Klipsch over-ears but hey, these sound decent for the price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AW0FR3561
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if you like Klipsch, there is an Android-friendly solution, the S4a which even has a companion app for controlling what the buttons do and various other things.
If you want to use your own conventional headphones, there are options that don't require any re-wiring. My N2 works very nicely with my Jabra Clipper, a Bluetooth device that comes with a mike and a 3.5mm socket. It allows you to use any earphones as both a media device and a phone headset. Just the opposite of having to re-wire the headset to your N2, this allows you to go wireless and keep your phone in a pants pocket or bag. Its battery recharges with the same microUSB connector as the N2's.
In fact, the earphones that come with the Clipper aren't too bad themselves. But I use the Clipper with pre-Android Klipsch S4 earphones and I'm very happy with the result.
Both the Clipper and the Klipsch S4a are widely available, including on eBay.

Neither the Jabra nor S4a have volume controls...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app

Dumbo53 said:
Neither the Jabra nor S4a have volume controls...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using xda app-developers app
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I have a Jabra Clipper and I use its volume controls all the time. Yours must be broken.
Actually, they're generic +/- controls (which the S4a has as well, as does the Sony MW600 which I have also owned). You can determine in software whether the buttons are used for volume or for previous/next. I use mine for volume.

el56, no, I don't have either - I was just wrong! Thanks for the clarification. This is the kind of info I was hoping to hear about. If we get some more, I'll add a list to the thread (Volume enabled earphones). I've looked at the Klipsch (S4a) in the stores several times but never saw it out of the package and was under the impression it had no volume controls. It looked like it had one button to me, and actually I wasn't all that interested in them anyway. I'd bought a pair (S4i?) for my iPhone a year or so ago and wasn't impressed with the sound - they sounded tinny to me. I wondered in fact if they were defective but I didn't take it further. But more importantly they were the in-ear type which I can't use for long stretches or for phone calls.
I guess I didn't understand what the Jabra was, and I never even heard of the Sony, so thanks for pointing them out also. If I get it now, they are really a different category device - not earphones, but sending units that they plug into. I particularly like the idea of having an FM radio (which I guess comes with the Sony). How does the mic work though? If it's part of the unit and not on the wires, isn't it awkward to hold that up to your mouth. Nevertheless it looks worth trying out. So far, yours is the best response I've gotten to this post! Thanks again.

anker bluetooth 4.0 headset review

I was supplied a sample for test and evaluation, and I promised that my review is fair and honest
Great headset for the price, got it this Wednesday and so far it has worked fine through my range of devices(galaxy note 2, nexus 7 and galaxy s2x)
4.5 stars.
pros:
Small, versatile and good looking(it's literally just a bit smaller than my thumb)
volume up.down button
multifunctional call button(can also be used for on/off/pairing/voice dialing(coolest feature ever, seriously)/ending calls)
comes with a whole bag of accessories incase you lose any of the mounting items such as the earbud rubber, or the ear clip
comes with a usb charging dock(that can be mounted on a table or stick to an wall)
decent sound quality for wireless headset
hasn't ran out of battery on me so far(1-2hours of music and 30minutes of phone call a day, it is rated at 5hr talk time)
no signal issue all day, although i always keep both my phone and my headset on me at all times. the farthest i've seperated my note 2 and the headset is across my room.
it also comes with a charging cable incase anyone was wondering, you can use the same cable to charge your phone or the headset directly(if you dont wanna use to dock)
cons:
i think the one issue that anker should improve on this headset is the rubber used to cover the actual earbuds, they seem to be a little bit to big to fit into people's ears(even after switching to other ones in the accessories section)
on top of this, i feel that while the sounds are clear, the earbuds themselves are a little bit lacking when it comes to the bass section, which limited the headset from achieving a full on 5 star rating, it may or may not come to people as a drawback depending on the genre of music people listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYinb5GLsI

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2460625

vectron said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2460625
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well, yours is certainly a lot more detailed.