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In Reply to: Re: Citation II AC balance posted by Jim McShane on April 7, 2007 at 09:21:43:
"After you get the straightest line possible on your scope rotate the balance pot clockwise (as viewed from the top) about 2 widths of the slot in the pot shaft. This will give a tad more THD, but a much nicer distortion spectrum - a "waterfall" pattern, if you will, with each higher order lower in amplitude than the one before."This suggests an alternative method of just tuning the thing by ear in the first place. No need for any test instruments at all!
I have had amps with AC balance controls. What I learned from them is that AC balance is not as critical as I might have guessed. Twisting the knob definitely had an audible effect, but it seemed to me more one of flavor than quality. What I mean by that is that if it's a good sounding amp to begin with then a *little* imbalance didn't ruin that; there is no narrow sweet spot where everything comes together. Instead, my experience was that there is a fairly broad range where the difference in sound was small.
When I tried tuning by ear and then checking with a scope, I found that generally I did not select perfect balance. I never made any careful notes (never mind quantitative measurements) so I can't say for sure, but I doubt I zeroed in on any repeatable level of 2nd HD or anything like that.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that gross imbalance is OK, just that perfect balance might be one of those things (like tremendous channel separation) that is not as important to good sound as we might guess. As you suggest, a little imbalance might actually sound better, perhaps depending on the rest of the system. That's up to the individual, I suppose...
-- Dave
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Follow Ups
- Re: Citation II AC balance - Dave Cigna 10:45:19 04/07/07 (1)
- Re: Citation II AC balance - Jim McShane 11:31:02 04/07/07 (0)
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