Have you ever had a problem with a part of your stereo or a certain chain of components that you just simply could not identify? It may almost seem as if the problem, like a gremlin, could jump between components or lay dormant for a long time until it rears its head at the most inopportune moments. These gremlins literally suck all the joy out of listening to music for me. My old stereo had a few gremlins, but I became familiar with each one eventually and could root them out of my system pretty quickly. I moved last year and it seemed like a good time to revisit how well my stereo sounds to me. I never really considered myself an audiophile, but I kept on coming back to this forum to research my purchases before I made them. Over the last year, I have switched out virtually every component of my stereo. I seriously upgraded my turntable and switched from a solid state to a tube amp; I understand this is a bad way to determine any flaws in my system chain. One problem persisted throughout the evolution of my new stereo: a weak left channel. I narrowed the culprit down to my phono stage, got definitive evidence (to me) and took it into repair. They could not find anything wrong with it. I am convinced this is the component that is causing the problems, I have hard empirical evidence that nobody but me witnessed and they cannot reproduce. I concluded I could not accept this suspect phono stage back into my stereo and decided to purchase a different brand. For the last 6 months, this problem has persisted with my stereo, almost to the point where I feel as if I am solving issues emotionally rather than rationally. It has made me buy more components than I ever thought I would need, but it also has made my stereo sound 100X better than before. It isn’t even a question if all this effort is worth it or not. I simply could not live without my music.
I've had a similar, but not quite the same journey. I've thrown a lot of money at gremlins and I fear that the main gremlin is my own mind. I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to say, other than I know what you've gone through ( and probably still going through). Life was easier when I listened to music through my red plastic sony Walkman, playing 3 gen tape traded copies of underground metal and Hardcore bands. Take me back to the 80s !
Yes, I have checked my hearing, thanks. The digital side of my stereo has no balance issues and is performing fine. The analog has the channel issue. I am reminded of the old film The Money Pit. After a while no decision seems irrational, and the lengths you go through to just get back to where you once were seem perfectly reasonable
So you had a weak left channel, replaced the phono preamp, and still have a weak left channel? I would say that's evidence that the problem lies elsewhere, no?
could go through each stereo connection in the system one by one from source to amplifier output, listen as is, reverse left and right, listen again, and see if and when the weak channel becomes right instead of left. also could ensure that all signal and speaker cables have correct polarity all the way through. one stereo channel cancelling the other out could have weird fleeting effects depending on musical content, listening position relative to speaker position, and speaker position relative to the room. maybe play music switching between mono and stereo to see if the stereo source sounds more or less correct in mono but just with no stereo width, or if something strange actually happens in mono.
It very well my be the component that the Phono stage is connected to causing the left channel to drop
I recently had an issue like this and swapped out the interconnect between my amp and preamp. Problem was solved. Don’t know if you changed all your cables along the way, but might be worth a try.
I had a friend with similar issues ..who swapped all her cables the other way round ...left to right side so to speak and one component at a time listening each time to finally find one interconnect that made the distortion she was having trouble with ... retired that cable and bought a replacement and has never looked back ... just a thought
Have you considered that it could be the shape or layout of your room? No room is going to be perfectly balanced in terms of decoration or furniture, there'll always be something absorbing, reflecting or blocking sound more on one side than the other. Swap your speakers over (don't disconnect anything, just physically swap their positions). If the problem persists, I don't see how it could be anything else.
Hope you find your issue? I can only relate something similar in my situation, my hearing very acute and if something is slightly off it takes over my listening enjoyment! Switching gear twice a year for different taste, you sometimes forget little things. I had swapped some speakers some with banana plugs others not, on this one occasions one side had 16 gauge and the other 18 gauge(done without my glasses). When the amp was cold there was a slightly weaker output on the 18 but when the amp warmed up you could hardly tell a difference. Getting older you sometimes forget little things like this, it took 3 months to figure out what I had simply overlooked, thinking it was my connections or the amp itself going bad?
Thanks to everyone that responded and tried to help me with this issue. Upon receiving my new phono stage and playing it continuously for 6 hours yesterday, I think the problem was indeed with my previous phono stage; even though the seller could not find anything wrong with it, but that only means they could not find anything wrong with it. I'm sure this was a purely psychosomatic event, but at playing this new component and my entire new system, at about hour 3 with no hiccups, I began to rest easy and know that every component in my stereo has now found it's proper place. Everything just sounded correct. No more adjustments needed. I was happy with my previous stereo for 15 years and barely made any changes to the system. I hope now to leave this configuration untouched for at least that amount of time. The amount of obstacles I had to overcome and energy spent to get this new stereo to simply work properly has been staggering. After a cross-country move, I just wanted to return to what was most familiar to me, my music, and by way of a 6 month long emotional and financial gauntlet, I finally have that prized possession and now can get on with listening to the backlog of 40+ lps I bought in the last year that I did not have a chance to listen to yet.
I had a rare intermittent problem (gremlin) like that many years ago. It went away when I bought new speakers and a new integrated amp. Never knew which one was the cause.
Glad to hear that it seems to have been resolved at this point. My bet is that a cable was loosely connected on one end or the other of your phono preamp. So, if you haven't changed your cables, don't be surprised if this problem should re-emerge over time.
@TarnishedEars, you were so right! After a series of musical chairs in my stereo component setup, I discovered it was not my phono stage that was the probem, but the cables between my turntable and phono stage. This took almost a year and I replaced 2 major components in my stereo because I could not diagnose this situation properly. I got new phono cables from Shunyata and not only was the balance finally set properly, the volume was much louder!
Checking interconnects/speaker cables should probably almost always be the first step in diagnosing an audio problem. It's the most likely point of failure in any system and it's usually cheap or free to test. You coulda saved yourself a lot of time and money by just swapping your cables left/right. Looks like you have an extra phono pre for a second system now Silver lining
My first LOMC cartridge was a gremlin. A Benz Micro Glider SL, it gave me intermittent balance issues that took a long time to find. Eventually found that one of the pins was thinner, so the headshell wire clip didn’t hold onto it tight enough. After I made that clip tighter using pliers, I put it back on. It worked for some time, but started to do the same thing again. I found that the pin was also greasy, so I cleaned it. The problem reoccurred later on because I forgot to clean the headshell wire clip too. So I eventually solved that, but all that time, it was a warm sounding cartridge. I disliked the warm sound and eventually sold it. Later on, I found out that Benz Micro cartridges should sound very neutral. I also discovered that the Glider SL usually comes with a microridge tip, while mine had an elliptical. Because I bought it at eBay, I suspect I got ripped off. It has probably been interfered with… but I’ll never know… it’s gone now. It was such a great source of frustration and annoyance, it took me a few years to get the courage to get back into LOMC cartridges… glad that I did though.
I gave had instances where an interconnect has not made good contact with the RCA jack which led to low output. In instances where the levels are already very low, like a phono interconnect, the problem can be worse.
I had an intermittent noise problem, usually confined to one channel, that sounded like a burst of static. Since I'm all tube from phono stage to line stage to amps, I re-tubed everything but that didn't solve the problem. I changed out various interconnects and cables- still didn't solve the problem. I did find assorted problems- a bad tube socket which I had replaced, a funky XLR connector on an interconnect which I had the manufacturer re-terminate. None of this was the problem. In discussing the issue with the designer/builder of my line stage, he suggested I swap battery packs from one channel to another (It is the Veloce 2.0, a pretty rare beast, no longer in production). In the process of doing that, I noticed some fluff/dust on the contact plate for the problematic channel. Cleaned that contact plate and voila! The intermittent noise finally disappeared. Moral of story: the problem can be something completely stupid, but until you go through the troubleshooting/detective process, you might not find it easily. The ultimate "fix" was no cost/easy/a minute of my time. Getting there was costly, though and drove me crazy. On the positive side, all fresh tubes (some of which are very hard to find these days), no wanky issues with tube sockets or interconnects. I guess I could make this a general lesson about life- there are times that are troubling and times that are pure joy- enjoy the latter and soldier on through the former. (I tend to worry these things until I get them sorted- it isn't easy for me to "compartmentalize" and say life is good, but my stereo is acting funny). I think this is true of any hobby or pursuit. We take the good with the bad and hopefully get more of the former than the latter.
