Headphone jack question, or, Is my mp3 screwed?

A friend of mine recently got himself a new mp3 player, and gave me his old Creative Nomad Jukebox 2. I put a whole bunch of songs on it, and everything in general seems to be working great, but i’m having problems with the headphone jack.

The original headphones have been lost or broken, so there were no headphone with it when i got it. I thought i’d use my old Discman headphones, which seem to fit the jack fine. The only problem is that when i push the jack in all the way, the sound is very tinny and sounds like it’s off in the distance somewhere. If, on the other hand, i pull the headphone jack out a little bit and jiggle it into a particular position, the sound is good, but the slightest bump causes the jack to move and the sound to go bad again.

I looked in the manual, and the only reference to the headphones says:

I don’t really know what any of this means (although i guess the 1/8" is the jack’s diameter), and Googling didn’t help.

So, does anyone know what the trouble might be? Are there headphones of the same jack diameter, but with different length jacks? Is it likely that this is a problem with the player’s jack itself?

In case it helps, i’ve put up a few photos of the problem.

1. Headphone plug resting next to headphone jack.

2. Headphone plug all the way in (bad, tinny, distant sound).

3. Headphone plug part-way into jack (good sound, but sensitive to any movement).

One more thing: the headphones were purchased with a Sony Discman about six years ago, in Australia. Is there any difference in jack size between metric countries and the US?

As i said, i tried Googling this problem, with no success. Any advice most appreciated.

I suspect that one of the tiny wires has broken internally near the jack, so that unless you wiggle it just right your’e getting a bad connection. Try a different set of headphones and see if that makes a difference.

I was going to advise you to learn how to solder, but instead, read THIS, please.

Thanks, Scott. I actually did find that message board thread in my earlier Google searches.

I guess i was just wondering if there were any possibilities other than a crappy player. If that thread is any indication, though, i might be screwed.

I haven’t yet had a chance to test it with any other headphones, as this set is the only one in our house.