Hi again,
So, I’m a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to headphones. I buy 'em cheap because I burn through them so quickly due to constant use–erm, seriously, if Fairphone did headphones I’d feel so much better about abusing them because I mainly bought the phone for environmental/foreign worker reasons. I don’t mind replacing stuff and have no issue with repairs, especially if it is only 25 euros.
I have yet to look into the whole CTIA v OMTP issue, but I’m day off tomorrow and will have a look just to confirm for you. If it helps, my headphones ‘crackle’ in both earpieces a lot and ‘blow out’ on the right side earpiece when the phone/headphone wire near the jack stick isn’t in the right position. However, @Patrick1 mentioned concern about having a phone jammed into a back pocket with headphones…which is basically where it lives for at least 4 hours straight a day! But, I used a second-hand IPhone 5 for years up until last year in the same manner and had no issue…
I tried a Bluetooth headphone set today and it worked brilliantly for my commute. I can’t cycle without music, and because the device skips the jack entirely, it was the first decent commute I’ve had in weeks. The problem is one of the niggling ones that seemed to get worse over time. However, my kitchen has prominent drawer handles and I’ve snagged the headphones out on numerous occasions, which made me doubtful whether this was just my usual headphone wire death/wrong type or if I had damaged the jack.
I’ll have a play about tomorrow and let you know.
Many thanks again for everyone replying.