Channel imbalance issues

[Paul Birkeland]

Which headphones do you have?  If you have HD580/600/650, I would recommend unplugging your headphone cable from your headphones, plugging the cable into the amp, then measuring the AC voltage at the headphone end of your cables.

The good news is that your Crack has no channel imbalance to speak of.  The bad news is that it's either your headphones, source, headphone cables, or you still have an installation issue with the padding resistors that go on the pot.  (maybe post a pic?)

-PB

[arkrazor]

I have the HD650's. I just measured through the headphone cables and the measurements match the terminal's 6 and 10 measurements. I believe I installed the padding resistors correctly because the resistance measurements match those you previously said (~24k at the input for both). I attached some pics of it to the post (sorry for the rubbish quality).

I did an AB test with my solid state amp and the crack and I swear I can still hear channel imbalance. Could it be caused by the tubes? I only have the stock ones and another set I bought second hand off of eBay. I won't rule out the possibility that I might've gotten unlucky twice in a row. It's either that or I need to get my hearing checked.

[Paul Birkeland]

I have the HD650's. I just measured through the headphone cables and the measurements match the terminal's 6 and 10 measurements.

Well, that confirms that there is a channel imbalance, but it's about 10X too small to be audible.  You may want to consider checking the channel balance of your solid state amp.

-PB

[fullheadofnothing]

Furthermore, are you hearing this imbalance on the 60Hz tone, or are you just listening to stereo recordings that will present different channel information?

[Paul Joppa]

Just checking here, without re-reading the whole thread ... but you did turn the headphone around to see if the imbalance moved to the other ear, right?