Experiencing channel imbalance

Ever since I had my setup I have had the idea the music is slightly moved to the right. But since I blew my left eardrum up at a party I thought that was the problem. However, I just found out my old cassette deck is also showing channel imbalance. I made a short video showing what I am experiencing. The differences depend on volume, in the video the white noise dB difference is 2steps but it actually differs from 0 to 2.

The video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x5Lrl9GihI

setup:
marantz pm7003 connected to the cassette deck (denon drm-740) with the pre-out.
CD-player arcam CD92 (7.5years old).

Some unknown gold plug OFC interlinks.

Elac fs 67.2 with QED silver anniversery bi-wire cables
 

I have tried a power filter (DC offset?) by connecting the whole to a kemp power strip, it didn't make any difference.

I have tried switching the cassette deck's power plug (the cdp and amp are connected correctly) so it's in the same phase as the other equipment but that didn't matter ether.

When I play kanye West's graduation on my cd-player or "playstation 3 -->hdmi---> philips tv---> line out --> amp"  I have imbalance but when playing graduation on my nokia 5800 there is none, so I'm a bit confused and worried.
I am wondering if you guys have any ideas or thoughts on the matter? I am going to test the dB meter on the Arcam cd37 to see if it's simply the cassette deck that's broken.

mcmalden

My amp is fully analog since it's an amp. It's kind of weird, when I turn the volume op to 3/4 and I play the 20-20000 sweep the imbalance accures at the low frequencies and the power is +- equal at the high notes. At lower volume it's vice versa, as you can see in the video.

Interesting...so because of the low voltage of the pre-amp there is some imbalance.... I don't think however that the cassette deck is bothered by the room's acoutics. There is just one thing that does't support this theorie: using my phone as source made the imbalance go away. Both tv and cdp have way higher output volume. One theorie could be that my phone LO sucks and there is some imbalance in graduation but the imbalance is there on mono white noise, so that theorie busted and it excludes the amp as 'suspect' I guess. I think the electricity is no good and a DC offset is causing the problem. The marantz has a EI transformer which isn't very sensitive to DC but the cdp and tv don't have brute powersupplies. It isn't the cassette deck because when I switch L and R the dB switch to.

I didn't know amps could have digital volume control btw, thank you for that^^. I still think it's analog though.

I'll do some more experiments

I've just run the tests on my phone. There seems to be a slight favour to one channel on the white noise sequence, but that was nothing compaired to the difference shown while using the cd92. Al the other test where run perfectly. I never could have guessed my 1500euro cdp would be beaten by a darm phone. Still no bad words about the CD92, the imbalance is not really noticable and the sound is amazing. A critical listener like me however, notices every imperfection:P. I might pick up like an army 1:1 50kg EI transformer so I get some nice AC to feed my equipment. Still I am not really certain on the matter. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRG1990 

No you misunderstood me, i'm talking about speakers and speaker/headphone amps, the speakers are affected by room acoustics nothing else, and analog volume control pots have channel imbalance at lower volumes, your phone has digital volume control so theres no imbalance

You're right but al the statements made are based upon the dB meters. Nevermind^^.

To clear things up,

the pre amp of the marantz:

goes to the line in of the denon:

and the participants are:

cd=cd

tuner=nokia 5800

aux= tv

So they al have to surpass the volume control on the Marantz and Denon. The cdp and tv don't have a volume control so the volume on the phone being digital shouldn't be the solution:(.

I have found out that the cdp is probably not the issue and the white noise sequence is probably no good. There seems to be an imbalance on the mono recording which I made with Audacity. I know the cdp is at least not the only (and probablt not problem) because I run the test cd with R and L both connected to the L out of the cdp and the imbalance was still there. When I had the white noise playing, both L outs where showing 1.2V(tested with a cheap inaccurate power meter) while the speaker out (denon not connected) was showing 1.2V on the L channel and 1.3V on the R channel. The volume was turned to 1/4 of the way and 1.2V on 6ohms is 0.2A which is pretty loud. I also tested the cassettedeck with both L outs and white noise, switching the L and R on the denon still was showing more dB on the R channel. So the denon is also no good. This pretty much concludes that you JRG1990 must be right and the volume pots are causing the problem. Still, the denon was turned up 1/2 of the way. The denon was only showing preference to the R channel at high frequencies btw which also is shown on the video. The cdp was giving 1.2V L channel while playing white noise and 1.3V on the R channel so that requires some more testing. I am going to search for a mono sample of an high frequency and a mono sample of a low frequency to check both the cdp and amp. My guess is that my phone passed the test while it only goes up to about 18kHz and the imbalance is most noticable at 19-30kHz. I could easily test this with a tone generator but unfortunately I have no such thing. Still, if I found out what is causing this, I wouldn't be able to fix it. 

I just ripped the white noise and audacity is telling me there is no imbalance, nero might burned it as an 32bit floating file though.

Both cdp and denon are in balance I just found out. I've got no idea what's going on.

I have found out that the cdp is probably not the issue and the white noise sequence is probably no good. There seems to be an imbalance on the mono recording which I made with Audacity. I know the cdp is at least not the only (and probably not the) problem because I run the test cd with R and L both connected to the L out of the cdp and the imbalance was still there. When I had the white noise playing, both L outs where showing 1.2V(tested with a cheap inaccurate power meter) while the speaker out (denon not connected) was showing 1.2V on the L channel and 1.3V on the R channel. The volume was turned to 1/4 of the way and 1.2V on 6ohms is 0.2A which is pretty loud. I also tested the cassettedeck with both L outs and white noise, switching the L and R on the denon still was showing more dB on the R channel. So the denon is also no good. This pretty much concludes that you JRG1990 must be right and the volume pots are causing the problem. Still, the denon was turned up 1/2 of the way. The denon was only showing preference to the R channel at high frequencies btw which also is shown on the video. The cdp was giving 1.2V L channel while playing white noise and 1.3V on the R channel so that requires some more testing. I am going to search for a mono sample of an high frequency and a mono sample of a low frequency to check both the cdp and amp. My guess is that my phone passed the test while it only goes up to about 18kHz and the imbalance is most noticable at 19-30kHz. I could easily test this with a tone generator but unfortunately I have no such thing. Still, if I found out what is causing this, I wouldn't be able to fix it. 

dubble post, winternet explorer 9 acting weird

I can't edit post without creating a new one and by pressing backspace I go to the previous webpage. I am beginning to think some kind of bas spirit is causing me equipment to fail.

As I look at the results now I think I can conclude that all the equipment has imbalance. Initially I thought there would only be one device malfunctioning but infact all do. I am not using the denon anymore since it's unreliable, instead I am using the electricity meter. The marantz is showing +- 0.1V preference to R but it seems it gets better at high volumes, I have tested this with the arcam both RCA connectors on the R outs. When I mean high volumes I mean 4.9-5.0V L and 5.0-5.1V R which is loud enough to hear outside ( I am wearing hearing protection). At lower volumes I get an steady 0.1V difference or 0.1-0.2V though this might be caused by the meter. When I switch the RCA on the cdp to L and R at the same high volume, the 4.9-5.0V on the L channel is way more often at the 4.9V side. The R channel is unchanged ofcourse since I didn't change the R RCA plug.

I have tested the cables, switching pairs, and their not the issue.

I am pretty sure it's the high frequencies which suffer and it's messing with the soundstage. If the imbalance was the same across the frequencies the problem would be less noticable.

I think I have got a grounding issue which requires some more testing. I might get everything properly measured at an hifi store. It's hard to measure both speaker outs with only a steady hand to trust on.