klardotsh
Head-Fier
Wanted to poke around here and see just how common this is, or if anyone has tips on either fixing the root causes of it, or at least brain-acclimating to it.
Starting about a year ago, I noticed my stereo image started leaning to the right: just 2% or so at first, to the point that I often didn't bother fixing it with channel volumes. This wasn't the first time in my life I'd had imbalances: 8 or so years ago I recall always having to set a 5% lean to the left for my M50Xes to sound balanced. Eventually that went away and I didn't have to think about channel balance for many years - even on those same M50X (which I've long since upgraded from).
Through the winter of 2022-23 and into the spring, I noticed that originally-2% slowly started becoming 5%, and I saw an audiologist about it. My ears tested as "some of the best [she'd] ever seen", including being hypersensitive to certain frequencies in my left (quieter, so I assumed) ear: she tested some frequency at a volume she swore up and down there was no way I should be hearing, especially with my tinnitus, and yet I nailed that pitch 100% of the time, even when tested randomly.
Over the summer and now into fall and another winter, things stayed mostly around a 5% channel imbalance on average, but I've started noticing a trend for that imbalance to skew worse through a listening session: where I might have a 100L/95R balance when I first sit down and put my headphones on, within an hour or two I might need 100L/93R or even 100/90 to avoid experiencing treble nearly exclusively through my right ear. In bed with IEMs last night, at one point I had to skew as far as 100/88, so now I'm getting a bit concerned: what's wrong with me, and is it even worth bothering with another trip to an audiologist about this? Would they even be able to do anything?
I've used an electric ear wax cleaner-sprayer thing. My ears came out perfectly clean, as they did in the spring when I had them professionally cleaned trying to triage whatever this is - if anything, my ears seem to make extremely little wax, or at least it doesn't seem to build up. As a kid and teen it did, but in adulthood, I've never had wax problems - much like how as a kid I had ear and sinus infections seemingly monthly, but as a teen and in adulthood, I've never really dealt with such issues.
This is most annoying with over-ear headphones: with speakers and in day to day IRL life, there's some sign of imbalance, but it mostly doesn't interfere with life - at worst, I just make sure I sit to the left of friends so I hear them with my right, usually louder/clearer, ear. With IEMs, I can just keep changing L/R balance and the frequency spectrum evenly responds. With over-ears, though, since bone and cartledge and the physical ear all play a part in feeling and hearing sounds, once I drop the R channel low enough, I start finding the sound thin and lacking bass (but I have to drop it, or the treble is nearly solely experienced from my right ear).
Thoughts?
Starting about a year ago, I noticed my stereo image started leaning to the right: just 2% or so at first, to the point that I often didn't bother fixing it with channel volumes. This wasn't the first time in my life I'd had imbalances: 8 or so years ago I recall always having to set a 5% lean to the left for my M50Xes to sound balanced. Eventually that went away and I didn't have to think about channel balance for many years - even on those same M50X (which I've long since upgraded from).
Through the winter of 2022-23 and into the spring, I noticed that originally-2% slowly started becoming 5%, and I saw an audiologist about it. My ears tested as "some of the best [she'd] ever seen", including being hypersensitive to certain frequencies in my left (quieter, so I assumed) ear: she tested some frequency at a volume she swore up and down there was no way I should be hearing, especially with my tinnitus, and yet I nailed that pitch 100% of the time, even when tested randomly.
Over the summer and now into fall and another winter, things stayed mostly around a 5% channel imbalance on average, but I've started noticing a trend for that imbalance to skew worse through a listening session: where I might have a 100L/95R balance when I first sit down and put my headphones on, within an hour or two I might need 100L/93R or even 100/90 to avoid experiencing treble nearly exclusively through my right ear. In bed with IEMs last night, at one point I had to skew as far as 100/88, so now I'm getting a bit concerned: what's wrong with me, and is it even worth bothering with another trip to an audiologist about this? Would they even be able to do anything?
I've used an electric ear wax cleaner-sprayer thing. My ears came out perfectly clean, as they did in the spring when I had them professionally cleaned trying to triage whatever this is - if anything, my ears seem to make extremely little wax, or at least it doesn't seem to build up. As a kid and teen it did, but in adulthood, I've never had wax problems - much like how as a kid I had ear and sinus infections seemingly monthly, but as a teen and in adulthood, I've never really dealt with such issues.
This is most annoying with over-ear headphones: with speakers and in day to day IRL life, there's some sign of imbalance, but it mostly doesn't interfere with life - at worst, I just make sure I sit to the left of friends so I hear them with my right, usually louder/clearer, ear. With IEMs, I can just keep changing L/R balance and the frequency spectrum evenly responds. With over-ears, though, since bone and cartledge and the physical ear all play a part in feeling and hearing sounds, once I drop the R channel low enough, I start finding the sound thin and lacking bass (but I have to drop it, or the treble is nearly solely experienced from my right ear).
Thoughts?
