I can barely hear callers on 2G phone

[dbone#IM]

I can barely hear people talk 2G phone

Hi this is my first post here,hello everyone.
So.... I am having difficulty hearing callers on my iPhone 2G.
(I am referring to the handset speaker used for talking on the phone)
I basically cant carry on a conversation on the phone unless my surroundings are very quiet orI am using the headset.
(The phone is not stuck in headset mode) when I pull the headphones out it switches back to normal phone mode.
Also the screen protector film has the hole cut out to hear with.
I am using the current software as of yesterday.
I cycled the volume up and down.........
The ringer sounds are loud enough( I think those are on the bottom speakers)
I have had this phone for over a year its out of warranty. This volume issue seems to be getting worse (but its been around for a while) yet everything else seems to be working very good. I would sure hate to have to buy a whole new phone and phone contract over this issue. I made an apointment at the genius bar and we checked it against some other older phones as well as new ones and it was considerably quieter, yet they could offer no suggestions as to a way to fix it.

Any ideas?