Unstable Imaging - Causes?


I've been listening to my Music Hall MMF-5.1 through a Bellari VP129 phono pre for about 1.5 months now, and the whole time I've noticed that the imaging in the trebble likes to shift to the right channel every now and then. The entire soundstage will sound evenly distributed until there is a part in the song with a lot of trebble (i.e. sibilance, cymbals, higher octaves of instruments, etc.) at which point the treble shifts slightly to the right. I've suspected that part of the cause might be that the table and tonearm itself are positioned slightly right of center, and I may be getting some "needle cross talk" (or whatever they call that). I may experiment by putting something in front of the turntable to see if that's the problem, but does anyone else have any ideas as to what may cause this?

Thanks
jwglista
As suggested by Newbee, swap the tonearm cables into your preamp and see if the imaging imbalance shifts to the other channel. If it does shift, that could suggest its a hardware problem or a speaker alignment issue. If it does shift, fiddle with speaker position (toe-in or move one slightly forward or back.) If it does not shift, it could be a TT/cartridge issue, but I'd also look to possible acoustic issues in your room as suggest by Wwshull. If the latter, read on.

If one has stable/symmetrical imaging to start with, its not that hard to cause anomolies at various frequencies by introducing or changing reflective or absorbtive surfaces in the room. Walls jutting out, furniture, ceilings - all sorts of things - could be a cause of a certain range of reflected frequencies stacking up in phase with those coming directly from the speakers - sometimes called a comb filter (iirc). The result can be an over emphasis on sounds in a particular frequency range and that can cause the perception of an image shift.

You can find first reflection points by sitting in the listening position and have someone move a mirror along the side walls. Mark the spots where you see the tweeter of
a speaker in the mirror - typically there can be two spots on each side wall, one for each speaker. Lay 2-4 bath towels on top of one another and drape that over a big piece of cardboard (or something to hold the towels in place.) Towels should absorb the highs much more so than the lows. Position them to cover the reflection points marked on the walls and listen again. Ideally you'd do this on both sides of the room at the same time. Try moving the towels around the room, including behind your listening position if possible. If the area to the side of one speaker is open and the other speaker has a wall beside it, try putting the towels on the wall to match the open area on the opposite side. You should be able to modulate the imaging in this way - look for the spot where the imbalance you're hearing goes away.

Tim
Newbee:

Yes, the frequency shift does seem to happen during higher frequencies. I think I have narrowed the problem down to TT setup, because I played with the azimuth some more yesterday and was able to improve the imaging. To the naked eye, the azimuth appeared to be good, but since the channel balance still seemed to be favoring the left, I rotated the tonearm ever so slightly in the counter-clockwise direction, which moved things a little more towards the center. While it sounds better, it still isn’t perfect. When the channel used to be REALLY bad, I did swap the RCA cables to reverse the channels, and the problem was then reversed; this is what led me to believe that it was a TT setup issue, and not a speaker placement or room reflection issue.

Tim:

Those are all good suggestions. I may try all of that just for the heck of it, because I do need to work on my room acoustics. It may make a difference, and is pretty easy to try.

I’ve noticed that the hardest instrument to reproduce evenly between the channels is the piano. It seems that if the azimuth is even slightly off, the reverberation that is heard off the side/back wall of the recording venue may sound louder than the sound coming from the actual instrument in the middle, perhaps giving the illusion that there is a channel imbalance. That’s just one of my theories.

John
Ok well I think I may have narrowed it down here after doing a lot of experimentation. I started listening to some classical piano CDs just to make a comparison on how they imaged compared to LPs. My initial suspicions were correct: the "shift" is caused by an unequal reverberation in both channels, which is favoring the left. The reverberation is heard more in the left than the right, giving the illusion of a shift. I think this may be related to my room. To the left of my setup is a wide open dining room, but the right side of my system is about 3-4 feet from a wall and sliding glass doors that lead to the back patio. It seems as though the wide open space on the left is giving the soundstage room to "breath", whereas it is more confined on the right. This is causing the soundstage to sound stronger in the left. Has anyone else experienced this problem and know how to remedy it?

Thanks
I have a similar setup, with a wall on the right and an open space on the left. The way I fixed it was to get some GIK panels. I put one on the right wall at the first reflection point. I then took the second one and mirrored it on the left, simulating a first reflection point. That centered and locked in the center image for me.

Good luck,
Bob
Bob,

Thanks for the help. My question is, if you put one of those panels on the left, did you have to buy/build a stand for them? I'm not sure that would work in my apartment; a panel to the left of my system would make it very hard to get around inside the apartment. I suppose I could always just move the panel into place while listening, then move it when I'm done...

Thanks,

John