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Um3x sound balance question/problem

post #1 of 7
11/19/09 at 9:28am
Thread Starter 
Hey guys,

First off thanks to all of you who posted their experiences with these earphones, which eventually pushed me to import them last week.

I have a (pretty frustrating) problem though: The sound balance between left and right seems to be off for some inputs. For example my Sony FW21e laptop, which had no similar problems with the er4p's I own, gives my right ear (far) more juice than the left. When I change the balance settings it comes down to increasing the left output sound by ~25% before they sound about as loud, but then it sounds kinda weird.

With my mp3 player (iriver spinn) it seems balanced, but there's no real way to check it, and with another pc it's balanced to the right aswell, but less than on my laptop.

Now I'm getting pretty confused here in pointing out the cause. If it's a known problem with the um3x for example (or in-ear phones in general) I could probably return it for a new pair?

Please help, this problem is driving me crazy, all of the time I'm focussing on whether or not the right one sounds louder

P.s. I'm loving the sound when it comes out of my mp3 player and sounds balanced. Very easy on the ears yet quite accurate, which is exactly what I was hoping for

I'm using the comply tips btw doublecheck the fitting before testing
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post #2 of 7
11/19/09 at 10:33am
You're saying that you have two different sources which both sound balanced with other phones, and that with the UM3X one source still sounds balanced, but the other no longer does?
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post #3 of 7
11/19/09 at 11:17am
Thread Starter 
three sources to be exact: PC (XP), Laptop (windows 7) and MP3 player (iriver spinn)

PC only tested with UM3x: Slightly unbalanced sound
Laptop tested with er4p and um3x: Balanced with er4, not with um3
MP3 player: Balanced for as far as I can tell on both (just rechecked)
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post #4 of 7
11/19/09 at 11:55am
If it's balanced with your mp3 player than it's certainly a problem with your computers and not with the UM3X.
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post #5 of 7
11/19/09 at 12:39pm
Could be a problem with the connection. from the UM3X to the pc/laptop. See if you can get a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm female cable and test.

But frankly, wouldn't the PC sound awful with the UM3X? They are incredibly source-dependent
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post #6 of 7
11/19/09 at 1:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by A_Dying_Wren View Post
Could be a problem with the connection. from the UM3X to the pc/laptop. See if you can get a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm female cable and test.

But frankly, wouldn't the PC sound awful with the UM3X? They are incredibly source-dependent
You've got a point there (it does sound awful in the 20 to 80Hz spectrum especially)

I'm thinking about getting the Creative X-Fi Wireless Expresscard, this should at least solve one of the problems. But I haven't found a good review of it yet; I ofcourse want to know how the sq compares to that of a realtek chip. I don't care about their digital crystalizer which is what all the reviews seem to focus on.

I'll do one final test when I get home this weekend though; there I have a Denon Receiver connected to my pc via HDMI and to a PS3. So two more sources to test from and an easy way to see if it's the player (pc/ps3) or the connection (receiver) that's causing it.

Thanks for your input, I think I have a female-male cable somewhere, I'll give that a go aswell and post back.

Did look around on the net abit, seems I'm not the only one having this problem. Not done any thorough research yet but one of the authors of a similar topic seemed to blame windows 7 for it (claimed to have no problems before upgrading the os)
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post #7 of 7
11/20/09 at 1:42pm
Thread Starter 
So I got back home today, found the pair of er4p's and went to do some thorough and proper testing.

Conclusion: The mp3 player had some sort of SRS setting set to "on" which apparantly changed the soundstage. Once that was turned off, the middle of the sound went a little to the right. And once plugged into the denon receiver, it confirmed exactly that; 20% more was needed on the left channel to move the balance into the middle. Then I quickly swapped it to the er4ps and the balance was too far left.

In short: The pair was faulty after all, my mp3 player was just working around it.

Guess I'm kind of happy I wasn't getting paranoid after all

Just sent an email to the ebayer I bought em from. Hope I'll get the new pair next weekend
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