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Would removing the balance control be a worthwhile endeavor?
I'm thinking less "stuff" in the signal path plus possible improvements in channel balance.
If doing this would make a good tweak, my next question is what goes in place of the de-soldered balance control?
Follow Ups:
Hi.Less means more to me, sonically.
In my upgrading the 50-year-young stock Dynaco SP-2 phono-preamp, the major sorta drastic thing I did was to bypass the entire tone-control amp, which included disconnecting the balance control pot, retaining the volume control pot which must be there to control
the O/P level of the phonostage. Who still needs treble+bass controls today?I also bypassed the entire stock I/P programmes rotary selector which I know was a pain in the ears sonically.
Replaced the original selenium (toxic by today's standard) full wave tube heaters PS with a 6V5HA SLA battery DC external power supply after re-wiring the entire heater PS circuitry. No more heater hum issues.
I re-wired the entire original multi-point grounding system to a one-point chassis grounding system which is crucial for a phonostage.
Plus many other components upgrade, including the original 'lytic composite filter cap bypassed by PE & PP film caps, replacing the old old volume pot with a blue-velvet ALPS pot, re-wiring & replacing all signal path wires with silver plated oxygen free high conductivity wire, etc etc, this vintage gear is transformed into a phonostage+passive control linestage per my less-is-more concept.
Its historic vintage sound which I hated since day one I owned the preamp one year ago, is now utterly transformed into something else so contempoaray:- see-through transparency, sky-is-the-limit transient dynamics, deep-through-the-back-wall soundstaging, elegant, & most important - musically engaging.
Why should I have stripped this vintage collector item down to its bones?
I want to prove something - how come the original Telefunken ECC83 tubes sounded so sonically 'unhealthy" to me despite these Telefunken vintage tubes are reputed as music treasures by tube connoiseurs worldwide, considering their market price today.
Now I think I have restored the truly elegant sounds of the treasured Tele valves which were totally buried inside the vintagely design-built pre-amp hardwares.
Nothing comes free & easy. My friends.
c-J
PS: one thing I did not change at all - its vintage outlook. It's front panel remains untouched. I am a vintage stuff collector, too.
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Belles uses good parts so removing it might not even be audible.
If you decide to try it, jumper/bypass the control instead. This makes the mod. reversible and it won't kill the resale value. Don't rip out the pot. and knob whatever you do!
Thanks for the dose of reality.
In retrospect, I'll be better to leave the balance control alone and just enjoy the preamp.
If the 21A is built anything like the Belles XLM I'm working on for someone, you will find that Belles did their homework on parts selection. The only thing I found worth going to the trouble to upgrade were the rectifiers. This one could stand a recap, so the older ones will be replaced with better, but the originals were just fine when the preamp was new.You probably could go overboard and make it noticeably better, but not a lot better, but even the price of parts for "noticeably better" would scare the bejeezus out of most people. :)
So leaving it as is is a wise choice.
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