Do you ever use the balance on your pre amp?

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Aball...On those recordings, perhaps the sound image that you seek to center is not supposed to be centered. Good speakers will produce a "soundstage" with instruments located anywhere between the speakers, and sometimes beyond. But image location has more to do with time-of-arrival than SPL, so trying to move an image by gain control (balance) is not the greatest idea.

The balance control is very useful to obtain equal gains in your electronics, as opposed to what is on the recording. The method is to play a mono source and listen to a speaker or headset bridged across your stereo amp. Adjust the balance control for a null (silence). You will probably find that perfect silence cannot be achieved until frequency response of the two channels is also tweeked with an equalizer or tone controls. I did a lot of this stuff when I tinkered with various matrix multichannel schemes.
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Of course I realize some parts of the soundstage will be off center. How can you expect me to not know that??

I was referring to music that should have a center image or centered soundstage like lead vocals or some acoustic bands. For those, I will have it the way I expect it to be. My stereo is for my own enjoyment and since there isn't hardly an absolute in this hobby, you can't disregard any method.

Arthur

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Aball...Since you realize that "some parts of the soundstage will be off center" it should not surprise you that not all lead vocals are centered (although most are). Performers sometimes wander around the stage while singing, and a good audio system will reveal that.

Of course you have my permission to twist the balance control any way you like :-) I do a similar thing with my multichannel system when the soloist, particularly a solo instrument in a classical piece, is mixed too loud so that if the instrument is at a proper volume the orchestra is too soft. I reduce the center channel gain.

This soundstage thing: The musicians are postitioned in space where the recording engineer puts them. Referent? Not a clue. Now let's look at a live recording. Again, unless I was there and remembered the exact positioning of all the instrumentalists, singers, etc. there is still no referent. Soundstage, IMO, is the most over used descriptions in this audiophoolish hobby and one of the most profoundly misunderstood characteristics when describing live or recorded music as a positive or negative thing. Particulary recorded. Unless the guy who did the mix is sitting next to my listening chair, how am I to know where the instruments are meant to be? On a stage, regardless of where the musicians are they all come out of the speakers in the same place, unless we are talking a small jazz venue with the drummer moving his drums all over the stage and the sax player following him into the audience. Granted I have been guilty of using the soundstate lingo for a long while, as well, but no more.