Audio only plays out of one ear and it's not the ear buds fault because I have tried 4 or 5 different earbuds but the problem still persists

Have you use another headphones insteading of your Sony headphones to have a try? Make sure it is not the problem of headphone, then you may need a headphone jack replacement to replace the old one.
I've also met this situation with my phone. Finally I found the right
Headphone Earphone Audio Jack Flex Cable for Samsung Galaxy S4 i9500 to solve this problem. You can also look for one repair part for your phone, then find a video following to fix. It is easy to make it. Hope it can help.

Hi there thobe47!
Please test the pair with a different audio device and see if the problem goes away first!

Firstly, make sure you are pressing the plug all the way into your audio device jack. Most are designed with two tiers, so only one ear will sound if only one tier of the electrical connection is fully established. Once you've tried that, continue!

Most earbuds are created with very small working parts with equally small electrical connections. If you have lost sound in one side, the most likely cause is a loose connection somewhere.
If it still doesn't work, your options are sort of limited. I would recommend first gently "jimmying" the wire leading to the bad earbud around while it is in your ear and music is playing. If you manage to get the sound to be restored, wrap sticky tape tightly around the wire and the tapered part of the bottom of the earbud in an attempt to maintain the new connection. It is not a permanent fix but might buy you a bit of time with the pair.
If you can't get it to work in that way, your remaining options are pretty much to either open the earbud and attempt to reestablish the connection (difficult, small parts, and could damage the earbuds if you don't know what you are doing), or to buy a new pair. You can get some pretty nice earbuds for under $5 at most megastores, and anybody who could fix them and would charge you will charge you much more.

If you must try to open the earbud (I don't recommend it!), I have a generic set of steps here. I take no responsibility for damage of your earbuds or devices that may follow!
Gently peel back the gelly cover of the earbud, starting under the top seam and pulling it off.
Unscrew or "pop off" the portion of the earbud that has the small grating. There may be an inner retaining system involving more plastic rings. Just keep these safe and remember the order in which you took them apart.
You will now probably be seeing the speaker of the earbud, looking like what you might see on an uncovered subwoofer speaker (just much smaller!)
Being careful to not touch the flat portion of this disk and avoiding anything magnetic (including your laptop / desktop), see if you can pinch it by the sides and gently pull it out of the casing -- probably less than a quarter centimeter. If you can, look for any severed connections between the solder points on the bottom of the speaker and the wires coming from the bottom of the bud. Soldering these would be extremely difficult, but you can attempt to fix them with small pieces of tape.
Nestle the speaker back into the housing, replace any retaining disks in the correct order, screw/pop the outer clip back on, and slide the gelly back into place.


Hope this helps!

Hi mharrington9,

You may want to post the make and model of your mp3 player. Someone may have solved the same problem with the same player, and would then be able to give you a more specific answer than this one;

I assume you have replaced or re-charged the battery first, and that full power to your player did not help. If so, it is likely to be a problem with the headphones, the headphone receptacle, or the amplifier inside the mp3 player;

1) Headphone problem?
Get a different set of ear-bud headphones, and try them out. If the alternative set works but your headphones do not work, it's the headphones.

1a) Large headphones, small player?
If your headphones are large, but the power of your MP3 player is small, the player may not have enough power to drive the headphone speakers. If you run your MP3 player through an additional amplifier, you may then have enough power to get sound out of your headphones.

1b) Broken wire in ear bud jack?
Most of my broken ear-bud sets have failed because one or more of the wires has broken, usually at the plug-end. There are 3 thin wires; If you break the left-channel or right-channel wire, only one earbud goes out. If you break the ground wire, both earbuds stop working, or you may hear a very faint sound at full volume. If you like to solder things, it is possible to get a new plug, cut off the old one, and solder in a new one. But it may be easier to get a new set of earbuds.

2) Broken Receptacle?

Plug your ear-buds into a different, working MP3 player. If the ear-buds work, then
Plug your MP3 into a computer through the data cable, and try to play something through the computer.
If the MP3 works through the data cable, something is wrong with the receptacle for your ear-bud plug.
You may be able to get your MP3 player replaced under warranty, since the purchase was recent. Or, if no warranty and you feel adventurous, take the back off and try to re-solder or replace the receptacle-- Though this usually ends in irreparable damage to the MP3 player :-\

3) Broken MP3 player?
If you can't get any music to play through the data cable or the computer, something is seriously wrong with the guts of the MP3 player. Try for a warranty replacement if you can.

Best of luck, mharrington9

This is usually due to the headphones or speakers not being able to play back the audio past that point, try a different set of headphones, the earbuds might be burnt out. some earbuds **** and cant play sounds past a certain dB the general dB levels tolerated without distortion are about 104-110 ish, but if you are listening anywhere near that your gonna hurt your ears. tests have shown that audio levels past about 90dB will seriously damage your ears after prolonged usage. Generally get nice in-ear ear buds with noise cancelation and never move your audio past 90% to clearly hear the music without damaging your ears.

I got my girlfriend some Jbuds J2 and they are great and i prefer them over my 200$ bose ear buds. check amazon they are about 14$ the J3's are around 24$

I have this problem all the time with my JVC earbuds. This may sound a little gross but it will work. I put the ear phone in my mouth and **** on the end of it pretty hard. What I have found is that sweat or even wax will plug the little hole and prevent the sound from coming out.

You can purchase new rubber caps for Philips earbuds on ebay from seller "auction2world". They are called replacement earbud cap. Unfortunately, you need to purchase the whole set of 3 different sizes.