Unstable Imaging - Causes?


I've been listening to my Music Hall MMF-5.1 through a Bellari VP129 phono pre for about 1.5 months now, and the whole time I've noticed that the imaging in the trebble likes to shift to the right channel every now and then. The entire soundstage will sound evenly distributed until there is a part in the song with a lot of trebble (i.e. sibilance, cymbals, higher octaves of instruments, etc.) at which point the treble shifts slightly to the right. I've suspected that part of the cause might be that the table and tonearm itself are positioned slightly right of center, and I may be getting some "needle cross talk" (or whatever they call that). I may experiment by putting something in front of the turntable to see if that's the problem, but does anyone else have any ideas as to what may cause this?

Thanks
jwglista

Showing 3 responses by newbee

Couple of simple things - perhaps the tweeter on the right side is revealing the effect of reflections from surfaces around the right speaker that are not like the room reflections from the speaker on the left side. The first thing I would do is to simply reverse channels at the amp and see if your highs still shift to the right.

Is your listening position equal distance from each speaker and are you sitting dead center? If not carefully create that condition and see what happens.

You don't mention your electronic's but if you have tubes try reversing channels to insure that you don't have a 'hot' tube on the right side.

If all that is of no effect, time to carefully revisit TT set up issues, VTA, VTF, as well as anti-skate.

Hope that helps a bit.
Does this high frequency shift mainly on loud levels? If so it is entirely possible that your cartridge or the combo of it and the arm is causing a mistracking which causes, for some ellusive reason I can't comprehend, some uneven and excessive highs in one channel OR a reduction in the highs in the other channel which might well cause the same effect. I think getting a test disc (at what ever cost - so long as it is of value) is a far better idea than just getting higher quality TT's, arms, and cartridges, even though I suspect that maybe where you end up.

Forgive me for being redundant, but have you ruled out speakers and speaker placement as being an issue by at least reversing cables at the phono so the distortions which now appear on the right channel will appear in the left channel if the problem is associated with your TT set up?
Couple of comments, a suggestion, but not necessarily any solutions though. 1) Your original post talked about a shift in the highs to the right. I think this is consistent with your description of your room and speaker placement. I'm a bit confused by your now referencing a drift to the left.

2) Use of a solo piano recorded and played back in stereo is not a good test for judging imaging. Usually they are multi miked and in many recordings the engineers have tried to re-create a life size piano (one that spreads over much of the stage between the speakers) and the dominant sound often is left of center, depending on where the recording mikes were placed and how they were mixed.

If you want to see what happens with high frequencies in your room get some recordings of solo instruments, typically reed instruments. They are much more capable of giving you a pin point center image to judge and hopefully balanced reproduction of room acoustics.

A CD/LP which has been of significant help to me in setting up and evaluating music (not test tones) in my rooms is "Depth of Image" by Opus 3. This was originally one of a series of LP's and is now incorporated into some CD's with additional cuts from other CD's such as Timbre. It is minimally miked, small, medium, and large sized groups and vocals of classical and jazz performed by some Sweds. It has been my touchstone for over 25 years regarding timbre and imaging. Each cut is accompanied by a description of what you should hear, and some of the instruments are very revealing of limitations/faults in your system in the high's such as a recorder and an organ but will also show what your system is doing right. A facinating exercise I think.

BTW, you haven't addressed your set up specifically, but don't forget that ceiling reflectons can be as much of a problem as side wall/floor 1st reflection points and are just as much influenced by toe in the effect of which is much overlooked. You haven't (at least I don't recall) ID'd your speakers, but assuming they are cone speakers here is a suggestion for you (one that initially appears counter intuitive) that is often used by professionals in difficult rooms.

Set your speakers up so that the axis of the speakers cross well in front of your listening chair. For example if you are listening in an equal lateral triangle with your speakers pointed straight ahead you have created a 22 1/2 degree angle. Try toeing in your speaker until you have passed your listening position 22 1/2 degrees and then gradually toe it back towards the listener position until it locks in. You will be changing (minimizing) the effect of lst reflection points on the wall, you will also be changing the effects of the reflections from the ceiling and floor. Give it a try before you spend any time or money making panels, drapes, etc. It's FREE. And you can get used to looking at cross-eyed speakers! :-)