[nickane]

I have been struggling to fix my livewires for almost a year.  After going through some rigmarole, I now have a new cable from mylivewires.com and the old one from Fidelity custom audio that came with my livewires, broke and i have now successfully repaired.  (I will post another thread detailing how I did this, as it was surprisingly easy.  The key thing to know is that Livewires 360 degree rotation is achieved using an RF connector - no wonder they break so often - called an mmc-x IIRC).
 
Now that I have two working cables, I have come to realise that the problem with my earphones is not specific to the cable.  It is however, specific to certain sources.  If I listen on my Mac Pro at work using my griffin iMic with either cable, the SQ is as good as ever.  But on my iPhone 3Gs and my boss's iPhone 4, the SQ is abysmal.  It sounds like its being played down a tunnel.  You can barely hear the lyrics and there is a lot of distortion.  Its completely unlistenable, the sound is transformed.  I find it hard to describe as its frustrating to listen to for more than a few seconds.
 
I am starting to wonder if this was to do with a software update on the iPhone during the 6 months it took me to get the spare cable.  I suspect it has something to do with having a mic input on the earphone jack.
 
In any case, I use my IEMs to listen to my iPhone and I have been using my wife's westone um1s for almost a year now.  Any ideas what could be causing this problem and how I could fix it?

 

[skamp]

The iPhones have TRRS sockets, i.e. with four connectors instead of three. I think the Mac probably has a TRS socket (three connectors). Maybe you're having bad contact problems somehow (e.g. inverted contacts)? TRS jacks have two black rings, while TRRS jacks have three.

 

[Golgochan]

If you press down on the button of the mic and the sound turns out alright, you probably have an inverted connection with your livewire jack. Sounds like your cable has a jack of the OMTP TRRS standard, used by older android phones and various dumbphones.
 
If the sound does turn out alright when you depress the mic button, you need an OMTP to CTIA converter like this: http://milkyzone.weebly.com/1/post/2012/11/-earphone-converter-adapter-convert-omtp-to-ctia-or-ctia-to-omtp-35mm-to-35mm.html
 
OMTP: used by older androids and some newer androids
CTIA: used by iPhones and most newer androids, such as the S3 and Note 2
 
If you want it to work with most modern phones using the CTIA standard, you can add a short extension cable, so that the adaptor is between the extension cable and your livewires.
 
If you depress the mic button and it doesn't change, try connecting your livewires to a normal 3.5mm cable extension and see whether it works.

 

[nickane]

Thanks for your help guys.  Skamp was right.  I was talking to a tech guy at work who used to be a sound engineer and he hit the nail on the head when he suggested it was just some fluff in my jack, which was disrupting the 4th pin.  I suddenly remembered the time about 6 months ago when I had to use a needle to get loads of scraps of tissue out of the jack.  Not sure why it only affected my livewires and not my UM1s, as neither has a mic.
 
I tried a 3rd iPhone and it worked fine.  I asked my boss if he thought that his iphone jack might be full of kerfuffle as well and he said he was always having to prise stuff out of it.  Another run with the needle and my livewires finally sound awesome again, which will tide me over until the Nexus 4 becomes available again.
 
I will post an explanation of how we fixed my livewires cable when I get a bit more time.  The key thing was to buy an mmc-x right angle connector off ebay.  I also bought a crimp tool for them, but in the event I didn't need it.  A soldering iron, some decent solder, wire cutters and a voltmeter would have been far better investments.
 
Thanks again for your help.