iPhone 5 music when using earbuds - bass is distorted?

[Draeger]

Used earbuds for the first time today with my iPhone 5. At about half volume all my music starts to have a distorted bass effect happen. Turn it down a little to between a quarter and halfway and it calms down but at that volume you can barely hear it. Turn it up to a reasonable volume level (I was in the gym on a stationary bike) and the volume level is ideal but the bass is distorted really badly.

Thinking it might be the Apple earbuds themselves I nipped into Tesco on the way home and bought a pair of cheap Skullcandy earbuds for under a tenner and its exactly the same with them. Plugging either of the earbuds into my wife's iPhone 4 results in no bass distortion at the same volume?

Had a quick look through settings on the phone to see if there was anything else I could adjust but could only find the EQ and when set to Bass Reduction it helps a little but is not ideal. Any suggestions?

 

[Draeger]

Okay, bought another set of earphones this morning and what I've found is that if I push them about 3/4 the way in and hold it in the jack, the sound is perfect. As soon as I push it fully in the sound crackles and distorts. Pull it back out about 3/4 and its fine again but as soon as you let it go it crackles. Is there any way to fix this? Rather annoying.

I did use a cotton bud to clean the jack and then a paper clip to wiggle around in there which resulted in a fair bit of pocket fluff being removed and thought 'Yay!! That should be it!' but unfortunately that doesn't look like the case.

 

[armafan]

Do a hard reboot/reset.
Reset by following these simple instructions: Press and hold the Home button (big circle below the screen) and the Sleep/Wake button (on top of the iPhone) simultaneously. Hold both buttons until the iPhone shuts off and begins to restart.
See if that worked. If not, can you return the phone to apple for free service?

 

[Draeger]

Nah, phone is well out of warranty. I gave up trying to solve the problem and just bought a pair of Bluetooth sports earphones which work brilliantly.