No preamp 'Balance' control?


Are preamps made without a Balance control? If so, can you live without control of balance (happily)? Depending on the recording, I make slight balance adjustments to lock everything in balance. Is this some sort of purist approach (if so, why not use a seperate volume control for each channel), or what's up with no balance control?
In advance, thanks!
louisl
g_nakamoto - AFAIK, the mx series are home theater pre-pros, so they must include individual channel level controls for all channels, including the right and left.  Not as convenient as a front panel knob, but equally effective.

Unless there is a gross imbalance, it is hard to know what one is missing without such a control until one gets to experiment with such controls.  The best way to hear what happens when you change balance is with remote-controlled balance adjustment (instantaneous comparison). Even extraordinarily small changes can be heard, and better balance does improve the sound.  I use to have a Mark Levinson No. 32 preamp in my system.  This unit allowed for .1 db increments of change in balance and/or volume.  I could not reliably hear even a 1.0 db change in volume with most music, but, a change in balance was another matter; I could easily hear a 0.2 db change in balance.  When center images where perfectly placed, the sound was better to me.  With the Mark Levinson, I could permanently program different channel balance for different sources, which helped with my phono setup because my cartridge had an imbalance of a little more than 1.0 db as compared to other sources.

I insist on some form of balance control, which is second only to remote control of volume level as a must-have feature on a linestage or preamp.

hi bondmanp, after thinking about balance controls on my mx132, I don't think a balance control would be appropriate on a 5 chanell unit.
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Right now I am using a SS pre  that is not quite as good as my 8 tube pre simply because it has a balance control that gives me overall better sound with the limited locations I have in my 800sq ft condo .