audio distorted on iphone and some computers

I am having the most annoying problem that is threatening my business, not to mention giving me a heart attack. I have produced videos on IMovie 9 and 11 and now Final Cut Pro X. They are mostly talking head shots of myself in nature at different locations and different times. Audio is recorded separately. I sync the audio to the video in IMovie or FCP. Then I upload to Vimeo.

It comes out fine on my computer. But on my Iphone, the audio comes out tinny, hollowly and garbled for some, but not all of the clips in the video. Some people get the same on their desktops, usually older Windows models. Go to the video at

[torahtrek.org]
(particularly at the beginning, at 9:11 and 9:45)

on your ipad or iphone and you will likely be able to replicate the problem.

I have seen several threads on Vimeo with this problem that are unresolved (68112, 70113). Here is all I know about it. I am desperate for a solution.

If one clip is bad from a particular location and time, all from that place and time are bad. I never have a good clip and a bad clip from the same shoot.

The videos were exported to Vimeo according to their recommended specs.

On my iphone, if I listen through the speaker, the audio is garbled. If I listen through headphones, it comes out fine! This feels to my untrained ear like a big clue. Hopefully, this will say something to someone about the source of the problem.

When I was in the Apple store with a very high speed, wifi internet connection, there was no problem on my iphone. When I switched to 3G, the problem returned.

Here is what I have tried.

I tried re-importing and exporting in different audio formats, with different bit rate settings, to no avail.

I exported the project audio only and then video only, and re-imported the two and combined. We (at the Apple store) thought that the various clips would then be equalized on the audio track. It didn’t help. Exact same problem.

When I remove the external audio and use the audio from the video camera and re-export the project, it works fine. (I just can’t live with the sound quality.)

The audio clips are recorded in stereo and show as stereo in the project and are exported in stereo. I tried exporting in MONO and that made the problem worse. The bad clips didn’t sound right even on my computer.

Thanks to any sound engineers or editing program experts who might be able to help!