Balance control?


I’m running an analog exclusive rig and feel like I’ve been dealing with a channel imbalance for awhile now. I’ve tried trouble shooting this every single way I can think of. The cartridge is set up correctly, checked tubes, etc. My question is: am I obsessing over finding the root cause or should I just cave and use the balance control on my integrated? I feel like it would be ideal to find the cause and not use the balance control. Dose using the balance control introduce anything into the signal? Ugh. 

paulgardner

Showing 2 responses by sns

Is room symmetrical? Sometimes channel imbalances may be due to room differences one side to the other, in this case asymmetrical placement of speakers needed.

Could also be hearing related, have ears checked, wax build up possible as well.

Yep, don't count on recordings always having perfectly balanced center image. I especially hear this with 60's recordings when stereo first became ubiquitous, engineers really liked to play with panning, separation, often hear vocalists slightly off to left. Seems like this was common practice, vocalist slightly off to right very rare.

 

Mono recordings can also expose an off center balance.  Play lots of mono recordings, you should have equal fill on both sides of the center. Try for the nicer mono recordings, those with wider perspective, crap mono recordings very narrow center image.

 

Stereo recordings can throw one off here, engineers, producers can do some pretty strange things.