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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
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.
gregm
3,409 posts
 
Mitchb -- either I misunderstood the issue (probably) or there's nothing "wrong" with yr system (hopefully).

Correct me if wrong: using a mono signal OR (particularly) a pure sine, you can discern no differences. (I assume you've tried pink noise and tweet frequencies.)
IF there is SOME difference, then it's due to the tweets --you shouldn't have audible differences coming fm the equip(and asai can tell you don't) -- or you have one damnation of an ear! Unless it's just the connecting wire...
mitchb's avatar
mitchb OP
336 posts
 
Gregm,
I think what it is that I noticed is when looking for it and right up to the tweerer I can hear a little noise which sounds almost like rf. It is the noise that is present in the right channel even if only the amp is hooked up to the speakers or the preamp is muted. I get an ever so slight hum from the tweeter/midrange.(this noise is only noticable if you put your ear against the driver 2" away) I think this noise, which is normal, is apparent in the tweeters when listening for it. When I switched the speakers left to right and right to left the difference in my speakers compensated for the difference in my amp. I believe both my speakers and my amp to be within spec and the difference I noticed would probably not be noticed or at least be of concern to most people. Swapping the speakers appears to have balanced out very fine differences in speaker and amp channels. The reason I noticed it before to a larger degree is that I had the cleaner speaker to the cleaner channel of the amp and the less clean speaker to the less clean channel and if the differnce was lets say for example 3% one way and 3 % the other way then I had a difference of6%.By swapping the speakersd the difference is closer to zero as the differences in amp and the difference in speaker are now the same on both sides makingg the sound more balanced. Does this make sense?
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