unbalanced

[ljcarr]

Hi, I currently have a issue when I'm playing vinyl the sound coming from my system seems to have a bias towards the left speaker, Ive checked all the connections. Can anyone give me there thoughts on what mite be the issue?

[Bigman80]

Hi, I currently have a issue when I'm playing vinyl the sound coming from my system seems to have a bias towards the left speaker, Ive checked all the connections. Can anyone give me there thoughts on what mite be the issue?
Hi matey,

I've noticed the same with a few pressings from the late 60's. Could also be a setup problem or as simple as cleaning the stylus.

It's worth cleaning the stylus first to eliminate that as a problem and then working your way through the tonearm setup and finally ending up with a solution.

Green stuff paper is good to clean a stylus and is relatively cheap.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[ljcarr]

Thanks Bigman80, the stylus is new and I have cleaned it, Ive also checked all conections and cables and all seem fine. Could traking/anti skate possibly cause this ? the only other thing that I think mite be the cause is a arm chair about 4 feet infront and to the right of the right speaker, I wounder if this mite be absorbing some of the sound from the right speaker therefore making the left sound louder? which has a clear path to my listening postion.

[struth]

If you swap the leads from deck to phono stage round. If the higher sound stays put its not the tt. If it moves then look initially at cart set up.

[Bigman80]

Thanks Bigman80, the stylus is new and I have cleaned it, Ive also checked all conections and cables and all seem fine. Could traking/anti skate possibly cause this ? the only other thing that I think mite be the cause is a arm chair about 4 feet infront and to the right of the right speaker, I wounder if this mite be absorbing some of the sound from the right speaker therefore making the left sound louder? which has a clear path to my listening postion.
It could be. I'd do what grants suggests first then shift the chair and have a listen.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[JimC]

'''''''''''''''''''when I'm playing vinyl the sound coming from my system seems to have a bias towards the left speaker'''''''''''''''

Are we to understand it is OK on other sources, CD etc etc?

Jim

[Arkless Electronics]

Thanks Bigman80, the stylus is new and I have cleaned it, Ive also checked all conections and cables and all seem fine. Could traking/anti skate possibly cause this ? the only other thing that I think mite be the cause is a arm chair about 4 feet infront and to the right of the right speaker, I wounder if this mite be absorbing some of the sound from the right speaker therefore making the left sound louder? which has a clear path to my listening postion.

Yes. To a noticeable but not huge extent. Id check by swapping the channels before anything else though... especially if the bias hasn't been touched since it was fine. Loose or dirty connections to cart itself, headshell contacts or arm lead at arm base could all also be the cause..

[helma]

Many cartridges have channel balance specs as poor as +/- 1.5dB which is already off by quite a lot and more than little noticeable. In practice I don't think I've ever had a cart / stylus pass through my hands that was quite that bad, but some have been clearly unbalanced. Phono signals are quite miniscule so component tolerances etc. add up in phono stages as well and some cheaper ones might also be off a bit - usually not so much as to be a problem, but if your phono stage is off a bit and your cart is off a bit and both leaning the same direction, then your resulting sound is off two bits :)

Comparing to other sources and swapping the channels in your phono stage input tells a lot already. If the perceived degree of unbalance stays the same but switches around, then all of it is in something before the phono stage.

[cre009]

Is the issue recent or fairly long term?

Apart from cartridge issues which can be confirmed by swapping to another cartridge (even a cheap one) then check your deck set up.

The platter should be horizontal and the arm should be on a surface that is parallel to the platter so that arm geometry is correct. I had a problem with a right bias on my Heybrook TT2. The armboard supplied with the deck when I bought it new was actually thicker at one end which I had tried to compensate for but following posts by Jamie here and at Audiokarma I fabricated a new board. That fixed the bias.