m3u8 Stream Quality compared to f4m on Computer

Hi!

We are trying to optimize our stream so that it will work on mobile devices. Presently, it works very good on a computer, so the f4m stream is working fine with no issues.

http://66.186.176.18/hds-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent/livestream.f4m

However, when users try to play the m3u8 stream, the video is great, but the audio is terrible! Every second there's gibberish that messes up the audio feed.

http://66.186.176.18/hls-live/livepkgr/_definst_/liveevent/livestream.m3u8

Here's the present settings for the stream:

Frame Rate: 25

H.264 Codec - Level 3.0 (for compatibility with early iOs devices) - Keyframe 4 seconds

Video Bitrate: 700 (We tried with 500 and the issue remains)

size: 320 x 240 for both input/output

Audio:

mono

Bitrate: 96

Sample Rate: 44100 Hz

Format: mp3

Can anyone tell us why the audio is so choppy on the ios side and what settings we can change to improve it?