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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
bondmanp
1,816 posts
 
I bought my preamp, in part, because it offered a large, continuous range of balance adjustment.  My room is asymmetrical, so that is one reason.  But, seriously, are we to just assume that every recording ever made is perfectly balanced left-to-right?  Heck no.  Outside of classical recordings, I have heard crazy channel imbalances, which even differed from track to track and LP side to LP side.  And are we also to assume that every component and pair of speakers is perfectly balanced internally?  That's a big assumption.  I bet there are many channel imbalances in audio gear, especially phono cartridges.  So, why should we not be able to correct these imbalances and restore the true sound stage?

I think one of the reviewers at TAS refers to balance controls as "sound stage controls". 'nuff said!
mitch2
4,007 posts
 
Many of us have a slight hearing loss in one ear.

Anyone in that boat correlate the difference with the ear exposed to many years of road noise and wind, i.e., the LHS - or RHS for brits? I have suspected for some time this could be the reason for mild HF loss in one ear, possibly exacerbated by the same side being preferred for cell phone use. Another cause for some is probably from shooting guns since hearing protection years ago was not as prevalent as it is today.
My SMc preamp has two or three notches of mild balance correction on each side of the center detent. I rarely use it but it is nice to have for a few recordings that are noticeably out of wack.  I do not notice any loss of fidelity when it is correcting balance but my speakers are positioned for optimal balance from my typical chair and even though the effect of the control is mild, I rarely go beyond one notch over.  I could probably live without it, and did with most of the 20-some preamps I owned before settling down with the excellent SMc unit.
g_nakamoto's avatar
g_nakamoto
348 posts
 
i've seen most pre-amps with a balance control. I have a mcintosh mx132 pre-amp tuner that does'nt have a balance control. does anybody out there know why?
bondmanp
1,816 posts
 
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.
larryi
4,033 posts
 

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.

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