I am at the end of my rope, please help

I don't know if this would be a contributing factor on not.In the 70s to 80s,I did some recording from LP's to tape,it didn't matter what system or combination of gear,the right channel always read higher than the left,if memory is correct . When I tried to match them up with the VU meters,I ended up with a imbalance between left and right channels.

Audiorader, I am not sure this is even important, but when you say that the problem switched from one side to the other after you switched the pairs of leads at the cartridge clips, do you mean as measured by the Foz or did you also listen to some music and confirm that the lower output problem had now switched to the opposite channel in your whole system?

Apropos of the question of phase, I agree with Dave and Atmasphere that this could be the issue. One wonders whether your headshell is miswired so that in one channel the "hot" clip is really going to ground in the preamp, and the "ground" clip is actually going to the hot pin on the RCA plug. Thus all could appear to be correctly wired while in fact that one channel is out of phase with respect to the other. This defect also does serious damage to bass coherence and stereo imaging. It's hard to listen to, in fact. If your tt, platter, and tonearm mount are all level and plane parallel to each other, then phase error is a possible cause.

I have solved the problem! Thanks to Atmosphere and many others great advice, I have found the problem or two problems to be more accurate. I started checking all of the components and found a bad 5687 tube on the left side of my Steelhead, that explained why I was hearing the image shifted so far to the right. The second problem is the Fozgometer. I have now received 10 emails from people who had read this thread and have had exactly the same problem. It seems that the Fozgometer has a design flaw and does not work in all situations. One person that I have been emailing with has three tables and found the Foz works great on two of his tables but on the third it always reads much higher on the right side. He has also changed the arm, cart and cable numerous times and has tried many different manufactures but the Foz always reads the same. He is having none of the center image sound stage issues that would be obvious with a right channel 5-6 DB louder than the left. Thank you all for your help. It seems that I put too much confidence in a piece of measuring equipment and since it was confirmed by what I was hearing I was convinced it was right. It was wrong and once I found the bad tube I was able to move the right speaker forward to match the left, set the Azimuth by ear and now my sound is chilling!

Glad to hear the problem is finally solved, Audioraider. Thanks for letting us know.

In my (extensive) experience as an electrical engineer, it often turned out that when problem investigations involved baffling, confusing, or contradictory symptoms, there were two problems simultaneously present.

I'm left wondering, though, why the Foz's erroneous indication would have moved to the other channel when the cartridge connections were swapped. And why, as reported by one of your correspondents, the design anomaly it apparently has would be brought out by some turntables but not by others.

In any event, congratulations!

Best regards,
-- Al

Sounds great.It's always nice to be able to enjoy your system.