2. speakers
  3. 1139375660

Speaker and amp balance question?????

I just recieved my tweeters back from being matched and I am pleased with the results. What I noticed when I installed the tweeters and played music was that they sounded different so I switched the tweeters from one speaker to the other to find that my tweeters were fine and that the difference in sound was due to something else. In a diagnostic I switches the speaker cables left to right channel and right to left channelon my amp and upon listening I realised that both the channels in my anp(Pass X250) and my speakers crossovers were slightly different from each other and I was able to get the two speakers to sound extremely close to each other by switching the speakers themselves right to left and left to right. I am getting pretty balanced sound but my question is that is it normal for the speakers to be off by a noticable difference(when an inch from the speaker's tweeter). Before one channel was cleaner and one speakers tweeter was cleaner.. In both my amp and my speakers there is one side cleaner than the other so I put the cleaner speaker with the less clean channel of the amp and the less clean speaker with the cleaner side of the amp and the sound is pretty balanced. Are differences to this degree normal?They are subtle and not very noticable if at all noticable from the listening position.In fact you could not hear the differences two feet from the speakers but it was there. If my amp were identical channels the sound would be off and if my speakers were identical sounding I would have a less balanced sounding system. Does this make sense?
128x128mitchb
mitchb's avatar
mitchb OP
336 posts
 
Driver, the noise difference cannot be detected with test tones.?If sitting in my listening position and play test tones(which I have done) the sound the same either from both speakers to .a central image or from each individual speaker. Somehow I cannot distinguish the the sound differences with test tones. They are at frequencies that sound the same between the two speakers. The noise I think I may be hearing from the right speaker is the type of noise you might experience when turning on a tuner in your system while playing a disc.
It is that type of difference but only noticablbe if critically listening to the two tweeters close right up at them. I am inclined to think that this is normal and within tolerance amp noise issues and perhaps a slight ?(I mean slight)crossover differences that make up for the difference in amp noise in the right channel. Once again please correct me if I am wrong. It's stereo componentry. If broken I will get it fixed.
mitchb's avatar
mitchb OP
336 posts
 
Shadorne, you could be right. How would I know?The tweeters both sound the same as I have discovered by testing and swapping them and the problem appears only on the right channel regardless of which speaker is connected to it.You could be right though but how would I know for sure?
driver's avatar
driver
750 posts
 
Since it always is on the right channel, I would suspect the amp. If you disconnect the preamp (leaving the spkrs hooked to the amp), that will eliminate anything upstream from the equation.

You can also check your AC, as it can influence the noise floor. The connections at my breaker were not as tight as they should have been & once tightened, the noise I had disappeared. Same thing goes for the outlet.

If you don't know how to do this safely, I would recommend not even trying it yourself.
mitchb's avatar
mitchb OP
336 posts
 
Thanks Driver, I've already done what you proposed years ago and then again recently. The slight amp noise on the right channel is there regardless of the preamp attached or not. I know it is the amp but
I know that the X250's do this. It's not just my X250 but is a characteristic of the design. The slight noise can only be noticed if neurotic enough as
I am to listen to the speakers up at the driver to hear if there is noise. Coincidently when I had my Classe CAP150 in another room 30 km away from where I am now it had noise in just the right channel. Same issue with my Classe Ca100 and Classe Ca201. There is something for some reason that these amps all had noise in just the right channel and they were all in different environments and with different associated gear and cables.
mitchb's avatar
mitchb OP
336 posts
 
I should mention that I love my Pass gear and if I could change equipment my Pass gear would remain. I might have XA160 monoblocks or something exotic but I like the Pass sound.My point of my posting above is that it is not uncommon for an amp to have a slight noise in the right channel. Come to think of it all my amps regardless of environment or brand or associated equipment did this.
More to discover