Although the majority of mobile devices available these days use a standard called CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) to define each of the 4 connectors in an audio jack or plug, early in the birth of the cell phone industry there was another standard called OMTP (Open Mobile Terminal Platform). The only difference between these two standards is the position of the ground and microphone connections, which represent the ring 2 and sleeve positions. Although the CTIA standard, popularized and used by Apple in it's computers and mobile devices, is much more common today and has been largely adopted by other device manufacturers, there are still some devices using the older OMTP standard. The problem is that if your microphone or headset is designed for the CTIA standard but your device is using the OMTP standard, your device (particularly the microphone), will not work.
This adapter is designed to convert a jack from the OMTP to CTIA stanadard (or visa versa).
| |
CTIA |
OMTP |
| Tip |
Left Audio |
Left Audio |
Ring 1
|
Right Audio |
Right Audio |
| RIng 2 |
Ground |
Mic |
| Sleeve |
Mic |
Ground |
Again, the overwhelming majority of both computers/mobile devices using a single 4-terminal TRRS jack for audio input use the newer CTIA standard, if you happen to have an older or non-conforming device, this adapter mediates a conversion between the two standards.
