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.
It's window on the artist's power in the recording studio, or the engineer in the mixing box at a live event, with the artist's final approval. Of course very old recording quality may be limited for tech reasons. Best example I like is Stevie Nick's Crystal Visions CD. Perfection in studio and live. To me adjusting tone controls would be like opening a bottle of wine and adding things. I prefer to take art on the artist's terms. |
+1, @elliottbnewcombjr !
I will add that many pop and rock recordings made during coke-fueled years (1970-1990) are off balance as well. My McIntosh pre has remote balance control with a very large range. It is my "soundstage centering control." |
my friend's tube preamp with remote balance, and ability to change the volume and input remotely while muted is Audio Research REF 5 SE. Loved it! IF my McIntosh mx110x tube tuner/preamp dies .... now I have a second choice. I think Steve at VAS has several AR pieces he is willing to part with (i.e. not listed, you need to ask him what he has, it's always a head shake when you look around). My friend has a separate AR Tuner, I never heard it. I had a very good Carver SS Tuner, sold it for a lousy $100 same time I sold my Carver SS Cube Amp. I think the Tube Tuner in the mx110z is remarkable, and it has 2 MM Phono inputs. McIntosh 2 MM phonos and only 1 aux has trim controls, I bet the AR does also (to equalize the various inputs volumes) but that does not solve swapping different cartridges and/or streaming. |
So I'm generally speaking of mixes, as @incorrigable stated, this was the artist/producer/engineers intent, this is one valid reason for not making changes. Probably far more important for me is, I try not to focus on sound when listening, being solidly immersed in the music far more enjoyable for me. Focusing on recording blemishes only leads to frustration, I can't control what I can't control.
Now I will agree there are the relatively rare recordings where the entire sound stage is shifted to one side or the other, extremely rare when an entire album has this shifted sound stage, usually its a single cut or perhaps a few cuts on a single album. In these cases I still generally put up with the irritation. I suppose if I was running balance pot with remote I'd adjust, but having dual transformer volume control, no remote control means getting up and manually adjusting.
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