Are Balance & Gain Controls Necessary in Pre-Amps???

[denom]

Just an interesting topic that I thought FM's should share their views on.

Are the 2 still features required in today's set-ups???

I feel Gain Control is necessary, as gain control allows matching with input level, so its important, but not so sure about usefulness of Balance Control as would never use it.

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Amp/Preamp Asylum

Do room shapes call for different balance settings??? Anyone used balance control for this specific purpose???

 

[reignofchaos]

Gain maybe yes. Balance is pretty pointless.

 

[gobble]

Ocer 10 years of its life, the balance of a preamplifier can go off by a small margin and hence some people prefer preamps with balance controls.

G0bble

 

[Jatt_boy]

Ocer 10 years of its life, the balance of a preamplifier can go off by a small margin and hence some people prefer preamps with balance controls.

G0bble

What exactly you were thinking when writing something that silly. So, you will use a balance control only after 10 years because there might be a possibility of drifting in balance, hence you need it.

You never heard of equipment re-calibration.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Rooms are not equal, ears are not equal, hence balance controls are not pointless!

Rooms are not perfect, ears are not perfect, hence tone controls are useful.

I remember joining in wholeheartedly with the no-tone-controls cry. I did so even though I was aware that my hearing was imperfect! Why? Did that attitude make sense? Nope... but there was a time when I was in severe danger of becoming an audiophiliac . And I'm stuck with my mistakes, because I still have the same amplifier!

RoC... I'm using the balance control on your old TLC-1! 1dB to the left seems just right. My desk listening position is more asymmetric than most, but I'm glad of it!

With some people using cables as "tone controls," a new idea for the cable companies is to start producing matched unmatched pairs. Then they can start selling them as balance controls

 

[gobble]

What exactly you were thinking when writing something that silly. So, you will use a balance control only after 10 years because there might be a possibility of drifting in balance, hence you need it.

You never heard of equipment re-calibration.

Thats pretty dumb to imagine a singular event in time after which a feature will be needed. Elecronics can degrade unevenly over time across L and R channels. And typically it will be years before an owner decides his gear costing $$$$ needs to be shipped to an authorized service centre for recalibration. Until then there is the balance control. Its not your cheap 100 rupee radio you can take to the local repair shop.

G0bble

 

[kanwar]

Gain control is necessary in order to match with the sensitivity of input and output levels and comes in handy when you need an optimum value and fine volume control range. So it is a must. Its a Pro-audio feature i seldom see in home audio.


Likewise Thad already made it clear regarding tone and balance controls.

One can omit balance control if he is not addictive to sweet spot listening but this seldom happens in home audio i guess.

 

[kanwar]

Re-calibration is always done in timely manner in pro-audio industry in order to compensate for the changes resulting from rough use/timely wear and tear. Also its done in the case of laboratory equipment, for example i always re-calibrate my DSO after every 1000hrs of use.

 

[greenhorn]

at least for cassettes, balance is vital - mismatched channels is a fact of life. Even if you adjust levels, azimuth etc, you'll still have variations in levels across cassettes.

In fact, my sources have such vast differences in output levels, I wish these preamps had per source gain controls

 

[sbg]

In my case/example, the Speaker placement is a bit skewed 2 feet away on right and about 3 feet away on the left, so, to compensate, I have to increase the vol on the left.

so, very much relevant - at least for Balance.

added to that, right speaker is also in the corner

 

[gobble]

Re-calibration is always done in timely manner in pro-audio industry in order to compensate for the changes resulting from rough use/timely wear and tear. Also its done in the case of laboratory equipment, for example i always re-calibrate my DSO after every 1000hrs of use.

Not at home by the average hifi Joe.

G0bble

 

[manoj.p]

But if you use tone/balance controls then its not a pure signal anymore. This altered signal now has the distortions, harmonics are changed. You will be able to hear these subtle changes on a high end, resolving system with discerning ears. Heck, the sheer presence of these controls along with VU meters + lights is another source of electrical interference. I think all these should be removed from the amps.

 

[gobble]

Yes a lot of people beleive in avoiding tone controls. Even I am one of them. My DIY grounded grid preamp, and the integrated single ended tube amp both exhibit an imbalance in L versus R. When I keep the volume control to absolutely minimul possible level where I have to put my ears to the speaker to hear anything, one speaker is dead silent, the other has faint music flowing. Since I dont have the trouble shooting skills needed to inspect each component in the path for a mismatch (even though I soldered it all together), a balance control would have been nice. but the difference is no negligible at realistic listening levels it may still be a pointless additional expense.

Unlike tone control components which are always in the signal path, I guess a well designed VU meter implementation can draw the signal level but be shielded from influencing the signal I suppose?

G0bble

 

[kapvin]

But if you use tone/balance controls then its not a pure signal anymore. This altered signal now has the distortions, harmonics are changed. You will be able to hear these subtle changes on a high end, resolving system with discerning ears. Heck, the sheer presence of these controls along with VU meters + lights is another source of electrical interference. I think all these should be removed from the amps.

A balance control should present a purely resistive load and should not alter the sound in any way. It's pretty similar in concept (though not construction ) to the gain ( or should the correct word be "attenuation") control.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

But if you use tone/balance controls then its not a pure signal anymore. This altered signal now has the distortions, harmonics are changed. You will be able to hear these subtle changes on a high end, resolving system with discerning ears. ...

In a high-end, well-treated room.

But Manoj, the point is that we are talking about imperfection.

However good your system is, and however good your room is, if you have lived long enough to afford all that, you probably don't have perfect hearing. You probably have some high-frequency loss, your ears may not be equally sensitive. Tone and balance controls can help.

In fact, this is just not about the system: it is about the environment, and about us. Whether these things are useful or not does not really depend on the cost, or resolvingability, of the equipment. They are to correct things that cannot be corrected by simply increasing the budget.

And where do you draw the line? Where, exactly, does your pure signal cease to be pure? A certain amount of circuitry is ok, but beyond that is not?

Balance controls certainly change the sound. By definition, they change the sound. Is that sound now impure? You can say that it is no longer what the recording engineer intended it to be, but then, was it ok for you to buy equipment that is not simply 100% transparent? Which changes the sound from what it was intended to be? And ok for people to use cables as tone controls, but to shun tone controls and refuse to even talk about the box which is designed and engineered to finely customise the sound?

you is not personal, of course. For all I know manoj.p might value transparency above all things, and have no need for these extra knobs. I'm talking about tendencies and ideas that we all have to some extent ...which is why I ended up with an amp without tone controls. But now I have ears that make a mockery of that.

It is the lucky and careful few that can talk perfection. Then there's the rest of us...

 

[gobble]

It is the lucky and careful few that can talk perfection. Then there's the rest of us...

Yeah. One should ideally do a hearing test to confirm that listening abilities are balanced across left and right ear. Then order a balance control to compensate ...

G0bble

 

[jagdish_p]

Yes to balance control for the reasons stated above.

I do not see any point in having a gain control but feel that a loudness control which boosts only the lows and highs or separate tone and bass controls are required. The requirement becomes essential as we age

 

[kanwar]

But if you use tone/balance controls then its not a pure signal anymore. This altered signal now has the distortions, harmonics are changed. You will be able to hear these subtle changes on a high end, resolving system with discerning ears. Heck, the sheer presence of these controls along with VU meters + lights is another source of electrical interference. I think all these should be removed from the amps.

Manoj,

Shall i take your post as a light sarcasm:lol:

In a room with reflections from various sources, peaks and dips can occur which will naturally DISTORT the original content[frequency vs amplitude balance across the full spectrum] of the music being played, hence either room correction/treatment or tone controls shall act as savior.

But why are you against VU meters, studio gear is full of them. Also the lights.

 

[Nikhil]

I would love to have both Balance and Gain controls if I could.

My Onkyo TX 8050 has them and it's one of the best features in there. Many people find the Onkyo sound bright etc and this is where I tone it down and bring the brightness under control. Very useful feature in my opinion.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

But why are you against VU meters

Have to admit that I think they are just a bit of design fluff for domestic equipment where we are not setting levels for anything other than our own ears. There are brands, though, that make a very elegant design feature of them.

Levels, tone, EQ --- all is achieved with the greatest of ease using PC source! Mind you, I'm not claiming that all software is created equal, eg, I have recently discovered that my favourite media player's built in Sample-Rate-Conversion, up or down, is very bad indeed.