Home > Consumer Reviews > Griffin SmartTalk Headphone Adapter with Control and Mic for iPhone 1G

I bought 4 of these. With use, two of them have begun to have an erratic connection. Also, the microphone is not very sensitive, so for most phone calls, I have to hold the microphone in front of my mouth, defeating the purpose of the product.

I bought two of these. One for myself and one for my wife. We both use Shure headphones with these attached. Mine is working and hers will not work. There is a problem wit the plug properly aligning with the connector.

I have bought several solutions to this problem and in every case it seems that that the extra circuit Apple uses to provide the mic and control functions for the iPhone cause problems for every company who tries to creat a solution to this problem.

Please Apple do one of the following.

1. Share the full schematics with 3rd party manufacturers for the electrical circuit and manufacture of the iPhone mic controller.

2. Manufacture a decent headset yourself using Etimotic or Shure like solutions to provide quality sound.

I do think there is a flaw in the circuit Apple designed for the controller head set that is causing a high failure rate across all points of the headsets being manufactured for the iPhone. Even the speakers are failing on iPhone headsets as a result of some kind of feedback loop or something causing the parts to wear and fail. Apple is not admitting anything but I hear from people there are lots of headsets getting returned with buzzing earpieces and failed connector joints and plugs.

In short this is the best of all the mic controllers I have tried.( I have them all) but it still seems to suffer from the same problem. I also wish they had not used the cloth cover as I fully expect it to fail but hey all the rubber ones are failing at the joint as well so maybe the best solution is just a make them cheap enough to make them nearly disposable as even my high quality Shure Mic at $40 failed with in weeks at the connector.

Jeff Stuckey

I've owned three of these in the last 12 months. Two failed and were returned to the store where purchased (a big box electronics store). When they are working, they are great, but it seems like the connection points are poorly soldered. I lost sound in one ear or the other with the previous two. The current one has worked well and consistently for about 7 months. I can recommend these with the warning that they seem prone to failure. However, when it is working, it is a very good voice mic and there is zero loss the quality of music on pass through.

The good news is, when it works this product does exactly what it should. I use the Sony MDR EX71 headphones, and I get great sound from earbuds that don't hurt my ears like the Apple product does.

The bad news is, the woven cable is too stiff to flex repeatedly, and should be better protected where it comes from the plug- more flexible cable or longer heat-shrink tubing would help a lot. I lost the sound in one ear after 45 days. I never manhandled the adapter, but do keep my phone in my front pants pocket.

I have gone through both the monster i sonic and now the griffin i-talk.

First let's start with the Monster, outgoing call quality may be better that the Griffin but it has a huge and fatal flaw, and that is the dongle itself. The Monster has a huge connector, which at first may not seem like a big deal, but it acts like a lever when put it into your pants pocket. It will definitely remove your headphone jack from the iphone circuit board, it in fact did so in less than a week after purchase. (Thank you Apple Store SF. for letting me upgrade to 16gb as I returned my broken phone) This is just through normal use, I was even pretty cautious as I just bought the phone, if you put the phone in your shirt pocket that may help, but ultimately even that will lead failure.

Now lets move on to the Griffin. They took a different route. With this you plug your headphones into the top of the cable which makes for a much lower profile at the phone itself, but as noted adds that length to your current headphone cord. I am lucky to have fairly new headphones that allow for replaceable cords ( Bose OnEar if you are interested.) so the Griffin just replaces that which is pretty sweet. Now the bad news. The cord on the Griffin has a vinyl cover which seems to be the rage these days. I am not sure why however as in my exierience they blow. The problem is that the material is relatively stiff and now the cable is failing at the connector (hey at least its not my phone this time). So long story short avoid the Monster at all costs, and if you can manage to not trip over the Griffin's cord maybe buy 2 at a time as the crappy cord materials make it disposable at best.

Can I please get a decent solution? One with full functionality ( I am looking at you Bose). The i-phone is awesome it amazes me that noone can figure out the friggin cord though.