2. misc-audio
  3. 194490-80822

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.

corelli

Showing 5 responses by corelli

corelli OP
1,054 posts
 

No.  Not sure what you are thinking but the disc is out of balance on another system as well.

corelli OP
1,054 posts
 

Well, the whole point of my post was quite the opposite.  A quick twist of the balance control took an annoying recording and made it quite wonderful.  Why in the world would you want to "accept them as is"??

corelli OP
1,054 posts
 

lol, yes. the first thing I always question is a cerumen impaction from my ear plugs.  But as stated, this is something that clearly originated from poor mixing from the sound engineer.  Fortunately, I have only found this to occur on rare occastion.   Nonetheless, just baffles me how something so off balance could be released from the recording studio.

corelli OP
1,054 posts
 

Normally, it would not be my norm to add an inexpensive piece of gear or additional preamp circuitry into the signal path, BUT, given the profound improvement I experienced this morning by just using a simple twist of my balance control, who knows what's next---a tone control!?!?

Seriously, I am happy with the vast majority of my CD's as is.  But in the future, I will be a bit less reluctant to use the previously unused controls on my preamp. 

corelli OP
1,054 posts
 

No, this is a DG DDD recording from 2005, Mozart Trio, featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter.  

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