Some advice for anyone with a channel imbalance.

Discussion in 'General Audio Discussion' started by svperstar, Dec 29, 2016.

  1. beemerphile

    beemerphile Friend

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    That may well be. It is a pot with a weighted base and some leads. Whether it sounds better or worse than an Alps or A-B, I dunno. I have a TC Level Pilot as well and I cannot tell them apart sonically. Otherwise, the only pot I have compared it to is the one in the Mytec. I don't know what is going on there, but the Mytec sounds best with the volume controls bypassed. So, from what I can detect, none of the pots sounds better than the stepped attenuator, and all of the pots sound better than any of the digital methods. Digital in the DAC sounds marginally better than DSP in the player. Again, just my ears and these few data points. Also again, the differences are minor
     
  2. westermac

    westermac Friend

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    So I just made the discovery yesterday - after all these years of thinking none of the headphones I've tried have a perfect center image - that it's actually my ears to blame for the imbalance.

    *gasp*

    I recently picked up an LCD-X that's been driving me bonkers with certain frequencies (upper-mids) tilting slightly right of center in mono playback. I haven't noticed as much with my HD800, thought it's always been there to some degree, giving full-range vocals a tilted appearance. For example if a vertical line ( | ) is a representation of a perfectly centered vocal presentation (with the lower frequency information appearing lower and the higher frequencies appearing higher) for me it's always come across at more of a slant ( / ) with lower frequencies centered and upper frequencies tilting right of center (this is often noticeable with electric guitar as well). Naturally I've always blamed my gear and assumed it's because no headphone is perfectly centered, but upon experimenting with some pink noise I accidentally discovered the imbalance happening within my ears.

    After some time spend with frequency sweeps and pink noise in both channels, I randomly starting hard-panning the pink noise right and left and was surprise to hear a difference in timbre between the sides, with the left coming across more balanced (perhaps a tad U-shaped) and the right with more of a upper-mid emphasis). A-HA! I had caught my feeble LCD-X's red-handed. ...or so I thought until I reversed ear cups and heard the same thing. Oh no. Surely the HD800 will sound the same on both s- ...Oh no.

    This came as a bit bummer to someone who went to school for recording technology and have always put quite a bit of stock in my hearing/critical listening ability, but there it is: my ears are imbalanced. Not severely so, perhaps 1-2db at most but it's there, and I suppose it makes sense as I've always known one of my ear canals to be a tad smaller than the other (one reason IEMs drive me nuts).

    I think the reason I didn't hear it with my HD800 is that Sonarworks does a great job of leveling out the upper mids (with Sennheiser's wonderfully low driver variation) and when used with the LCD-X I get a more shouty (albeit fun) presentation which exaggerates the discrepancies in my hearing. A 1db bump to the left in Audio Hijack improves things, so I suppose it's just something I'll have to accept or get over. On some level it's nice to know I can quite blaming my gear for absolutely everything and get used to the fact that I just heard things a little weird, and that's OK. A bit of a tough pill to swallow for a slightly OCD perfectionist but probably a good thing for me to wrestle with.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I have a very dejected LCD-X that I need to apologize to...
     
  3. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    On a related note, you also have to account for your brain having a very powerful filter that levels out your hearing. I have a slight imbalance to my ears as well, but for the most part I don't hear it unless I make the *very* conscious effort to put myself into that mental/listening state (which is for the most part unpleasant). My brain can even mask it during a frequency sweep, though on single or dual tones I'll notice.
     
  4. beemerphile

    beemerphile Friend

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    I have been thinking about this statement, as it reflects how I always felt about the whole "audio chain" and the need to keep it simple. Then, for shits-n-giggles I took a look at the effects pedals strung together by my favorite guitarist, whose work I seek to listen to in absolute sonic purity..

    [​IMG]

    So maybe dual mono stepped attenuators won't completely destroy the presentation. :)
     
  5. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Well, you know how it is. Listening to music is so much tougher than just playing it.

    :cool: :D

    .

    (PS... How the hell does he tell where to put his feet? And the smaller buttons: toes? And if playing with boots on? Beats me!)
     
  6. beemerphile

    beemerphile Friend

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    Because he is Joe Bonamassa and he is a god.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    He's got a theramin! So...
    ...Yeah.



    .
     
  8. beemerphile

    beemerphile Friend

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    Cheapest thing on the stage. but yeah.
     
  9. Joe Bloggs

    Joe Bloggs Acquaintance

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    My humble contribution on the playback end... :piratemug:
    [​IMG]
    Why yes, there's channel balance compensation in there somewhere... why do you ask? :Violin:
     
  10. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Oh my god. o_O

    And I thought my single EQ module looked good!

    :D
     

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