I’ve got a similar issue in reverse the left was louder than the right. I’ve found that sometimes room treatments can help balance things out. In one instance, a half-round piece about 5’ tall against the wall between the speakers did the trick and may be worth a try. I fortunately have a balance control on my preamp so I could even things out that way. If room treatments aren’t possible or don’t work for your main system, I’d search out a preamp with a transparent balance control and fix it that way. Moving your chair may help with balance, but it’s gotta have some negative effects on imaging/soundstage so using a balance control may be preferable. Life’s too short. Just my $0.02 FWIW.
Obvious Epiphany
I don't have golden ears and am relatively inexperienced when it comes to being an audiophile. Things like pace, rhythm and timing, jitter and other such things are pretty meaningless to me (and I'm fine with that). But my one audiophile super power is speaker position as it relates to sound stage. I actually think it is less of a super power and more of a sensitivity....or deficiency....that is probably based on the fact that the hearing in my left ear is worse than my right and both of them are 60 years old.
In any case, for a number of years it has seemed to me that most music seems to be weighted to the right channel, particularly vocals. I have three systems; one is relatively high end, the other is semi high end and the third is mid-fi at best. All three seem right channel heavy depending on the song (there are notable exceptions between songs, some of which seem left channel predominant). I chalked this up to the difference in my hearing. And that is probably the case.
I experiment a lot with minor changes in speaker position within the confines of my room parameters. This mostly involves degrees of toe-in, distance between speakers and distance from listening position (which is pretty room limited with my main system). But, in all these experiments, all of which render subtle differences, I always kept my listening position equidistant from the two speakers. In other words at the point of an isosceles triangle. I don't know why.
In any case I was recently listening to my midfi system, which ironically has the best room situation of the three and the right channel predominance was getting on my nerves and I just slid my listening position to the left about two feet or so. Bingo. Sound stage centered up nicely. The songs that I know to have more of a left channel predominance stayed about the same and were not more heavily left weighted.
I know this sounds like a 'duh' moment. But for those with imperfect ears, imperfect rooms or imperfect systems this might be worth a try if your sound stage is skewed to one side or the other. I guess the take home message is to try everything. Even if the classic speaker position diagrams say otherwise.
(I have less leeway with listening position with my main system but moving further less has made a big difference there as well.)
Showing 3 responses by soix
Man, as I said before life is too short to deal with stuff like this, so again I’d recommend another preamp that has a transparent balance control — some things are just worth paying for, like pure enjoyment and sanity. I know the Atmasphere MP3 and Linear Tube Audio MicroZOTL offer well-implemented balance controls, but I’m sure there are several others. Best of luck. |
You might want to consider these Gliders from Herbie’s. Not only do they make it easy to move/level your speakers and avoid floor damage, but many people report they improve sound and only cost around $72 — a mere pittance in audiophile terms. |