Volume discrepancy between phone and earbuds

I have an iPhone 12 running OS 17.4.1, and a pair of JVC HA-Z55T earbuds, on which I listen to a lot of podcasts.

I have never had trouble hearing until about two weeks ago, when I suspect I touched something, either on the phone or the earbuds themselves, and the volume emitted by the earbuds dropped even though the phone was on normal listening volume. Now, even with the volume turned all the way up, I have trouble getting much sound.

This does NOT happen when pairing the phone to other bluetooth devices (i.e. the car sound system).

I have gone through every setting I can think of, using various YouTube and other online instructions, but can find nothing to account for it. Can you think of anything I might try? Mrs SR has the exact same devices I do, and she is having no issues.

Is there a separate app for the buds with it’s own volume control?

The jabra app on my work PC has that (and i’ve adjusted that before by mistake!).

Have you tried pairing your earbuds to another device to see if they work ok?

I’ve got some cheap earbuds from Amazon. If I hold down the button on the side it changes the volume. On my Samsung phone it changes the volume on the phone too. On my old Amazon Fire tablet it only changes the volume in the buds, but not on the tablet. So I can have the tablet set at full volume and if the buds are turned down then I can hardly hear anything until I remember to turn them up.

This does NOT happen when pairing the phone to other bluetooth devices

yes. the volume control is global as far as I’m aware.

If it were just one I’d say maybe it needed cleaning… Can you “hard reset” them somehow? Or something might just have broken? 🤷‍♂️

To lower the volume, press the button on the L earphone twice quickly. To raise the volume, press the button on the L earphone 3 times quickly.

Have a good look for  wax blocking the end of the ear bud.