It comes with a balance knob?!?! I'll take it!

Lol, I remember my first high end pre amp ... it had just a few knobs, as was the trend, but it still had a balance knob. I was used to balance knobs that would ’move’ the sound from full left to full right. This one didn’t. I thought I heard a teenie tiny difference on my Magnepan speakers between full left or full right, but I couldn’t even tell for sure.

Not that I planned on using the balance knob, but with new equipment I wanted things to work and not be broken. I called the dealer. He called the manufacturer. I sent the unit in for measurement, under guarantee. It was gone 6 weeks. It came back with a measurement report ... all was well ... the difference was 2 dB, as intended!

2 dB ... the border of what is humanly detectable ... lol ... that's what I call 'fine tuning'. Why not leave that knob off? I has been in the middle ... for 30 years now ... the amp is still perfectly balanced.

Summarising, balance adjustment is useful to correct

*hearing deficiencies

*room deficiencies

*small output differences in phone cartridges

*speaker placement issues

*tube/valve output differences

*adjusting position of sweet spot

*channel verification

Balance control need not degrade sound any more than a volume pot if the amp is configured dual mono with a knob for each channel.

Story ends.

Well, I, and I imagine others have said the inverse of the OP's statement:. "There's no balance control?  I'll pass.". Many recordings are not made with perfect L-R balance ( poor mastering, faulty studio monitoring equipment, etc.).  I find my balance control, on my remote, to be indispensable.  An off-center center stage is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.  One reason I sold my CJ PV-11 was the limited range of balance adjustment.  Of course, separate left and right volume pots also work, but not having any means of adjusting channel balance rules out a preamp for me.  One major rag reviewer refers to the balance control as his soundstage control.  Horses for courses.

What an education so far!

• Never purchase concert seats where one of my ears face the speaker stack
• Never setup my system in an awkwardly shaped space
• Avoid tube solutions
• Avoid poorly recorded tracks with off-center imaging
• Make sure my pre or integrated remote has balance control in case any of the above happen!

Balance on a remote is something I've never seen but probably the best thing I've learned from this post because I have run into tracks where the vocalist is off center and am now curious if a balance adjustment does "fix" this without killing the overall presentation?

Over the past 3 years i’ve been doing a bunch of research and then design on a new method for remote-driven volume. Since its inherently dual mono, balance is there.

Unless you have a dedicated listening room with one chair, the combination is a revelation. I have real music room. But i also spend 70% of y listening time and much of the social listening in my living/great/common room, where there is no center seat. Seated in an off-center chair, reading or whatever, its awesome to move the balance db by db and suddenly have the image lock in.

Just sayin’ Maybe no one asks, but they know not what they are missing. Caveat - if you have to get up, move sit down, rinse and repeat, the magic is lost.

Oh, and with modern methods, there is no noise/distortion penalty to having balance (with traditional series designs there is)