I've given up counting the number of LP's / CDs I own that have terrible mixing. A jazz trio that has one instrument in the left speaker, two in the middle and nothing on the right side. And it's not the equipment. I often wondered what the engineer was thinking, or was he/she just too lazy to lay down a good mix? Or why, when they re-master a disk, they don't re-mix it at the same time, to bring out the best performance. So much technology, so little good use of it?
Out of Balance
So this morning I loaded a Mozart trio CD to go with my morning cup of joe. Immediately I noted the piano and violin pushed way to the left and the cello dead center. Unlistenable! While I virtually never used tone or balance controls, a did this time. A quick turn of the balance control and all the instruments now floated in space perfectly positioned (at least in my mind).
Made my wonder did the sound engineer suffer from unilateral hearing loss! Hard to imagine a wonderful performance would be ruined by such careless balancing. I have had this happen with a few other CD's.
Just wondering how often other members have had this happen and did it bug you as much as it does me.