Occasional Sound Imbalance Issue
I posted an issue a while back where I had an issue with what I thought at first was due to my room sucking out higher frequencies from the right side of the sound. After jumping through hoops to isolate the issue, ruling out the room and my gear as causing the issue, I had concluded that it was actually slight imbalances in the source material.
This turned out not to be the case. The issue sometimes returns, but only when I physically move ANY of my components (even slightly), or mess with my cabling (even slightly). When the problem returns, it takes hours of trial and error fiddling to get rid of it. When the problem is resolved, it stays resolved for as long as I don’t touch any of my components or cabling. When re-arranging ANY of my vibration control footers that my components rest on, the problem will promptly return, every time.
This issue drives be NUTS.... Suggesting the issue is with balance is misleading - it’s more subtle than that, but at the same time very obvious (but only on certain songs which is why for a while I believed the issue to be related to source material). At times the issue is very subtle when it manifests, and at other times it’s extreme. But in all cases, even non-audiophile members of my family (which is everyone else...) can detect the issue. It’s like the air and ambience around a singer’s voice is present on the left of the singer, but not on the right, which is veiled in comparison. Also, when the problem resolves, the vocals in general sound more open and confident - possibly simply due to the ambience and air on the right side of the vocals being restored.
What’s new vs my prior thread is that I now understand the issue to be transitory, and related to physically moving my gear or cables, even slightly. In my prior thread on the issue I’ve gone through the process of ruling out any of my devices specifically contributing to the issue, testing in isolation etc and the issue still remaining (I reversed my amp’s output speaker cables too, to see if the problem would follow the output).
My cabling is a bit of a mess. Currently I have everything but my Rel subs (which arrived only very recently so nothing to do with the issue) powered by my Torus RM20, which in turn is connected to a dedicated 20A circuit. I have a photo of my rat’s nest of cables uploaded to my system pics on Audiogon. My full system details and photos are posted there as well for reference. I'd suspect my mess of cables are to blame with EMF buildup or something, but the weird thing is that just gently moving any component, even while on and playing music, can cause the issue to show up (I suppose gently moving a component moves it's cables as well however).
On a less revealing system or components, the issue is much harder to detect. Removing my PhoenixUSB reclocker from the system for example makes it a bit harder to detect, but it’s still obvious. I’d probably never know about this issue if I had my prior speaker cables, but with my Nordost Valhalla 2’s any issue is readily apparent.
Has anyone heard of anything like this before, and have an explanation of what is happening? And suggestions on ways to prevent it from happening? I really hate this issue, especially because it is a big, big impediment to the tweaking/testing process.
The amp at the end of my last post I touched on oscillation. it seems like you are making progress, but it would not be unthinkable to have a problem if you speakers are difficult to drive with high phase angles, and the cable pushes it into oscillation. |
Yeah if once it starts, it does not stop, then having a set fo RCAs on another input would allow a phone to plugged in quickly.
But I would not disconnect the speaker… that sould stop the thing. At some point we should know your speakers are, as well as the amp. |
Nah @immatthewj just “ground loop like”. If the speakers/cables are forming an oscillator that the amp get stuck on. |
For a long time I had similar balance issues. I chalked it up to room acoustics or just pressure in my ears or whatever. Imaging (especially center image) was always slightly off and subtle but hella annoying. So one day I contacted the manufacturer of my SS amp. He suggested the the amp needed biasing and suggested I send it in for tuneup. I sent the amp in for a full internal upgrade. When it came back the imaging problem was gone. Unfortunately, the amp also came home with a problem with low level hum/static from the speakers. Not a loud noise but once you hear it you can’t un-hear it type of thing. Long story short, I gave up on this amp and bought a pair of SS class D mono amps. I haven’t had an imaging problem since. |
@holmz my amp is a Gryphon Diablo 300, my speakers are B&W 802D2’s, and my cables are Nordost Valhalla 2’s. My full system is listed on my profile. I’ve seen others state that the Diablo needs low capacitance cables, but I’ve also heard that the Valhalla 2’s are very low capacitance. That said, I really do think the issue was related to sensitivities of the Innuos devices and where they were plugged into the Torus conditioner/transformer. As I said, it’s possible either the devices are impacting each other with noise fed back on their AC cable, or it depends on where the outlets are tapped into the transformer of my Torus (a theory someone else told me). The “balance” seems stable now, everything sounds great, with the plugs inserted into a specific set of sockets of the Torus. But I’m a bit apprehensive to try moving any device around again to see if the problem can be re triggered! |
