Balance Control Tip - Mark Levinson 380 Owner's Manual

Turning the (which serves as a balance control in
knob balance
mode) in either direction will change the balance in that direction. The
display will reflect this by changing to the appropriate single-headed
arrow to indicate the direction of change and by showing the number
of decibels by which that channel has been increased (in tenths of a
decibel), as below:
In this example, the right channel is 2.3 decibels louder than the Left.
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Precise control is essential for obtaining accurate sound-

balance control tip

balance
staging. Output imbalances due to asymmetrical placement of the
loudspeakers in the room are common, and degrade imaging accuracy.
To correct this problem, place the Nº380 in mode and center the
mono
resulting image (which should be quite small) directly between the
loudspeakers, using the control. Differences as small as 0.1 or
balance
0.2 decibels have been found to be significant. Try it.
Note that this "mono trick" can correct only for differences that occur
after the preamplifier in the signal chain, things like asymmetrical
placement of loudspeakers or slight mismatches in sensitivity between
speakers. If a particular recording is out of balance, you will have to ad-
just the balance more subjectively, as always.