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How to control Left & Right Balance on iMAC after connected to external DAC & Amp?


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Hello,

 

My headphone has slight imbalance between left and right channel (Left is louder a bit) and it causing my left ear ringing after listening for some time due to imbalance between left and right.

Is there any way that I can control left & right balance on iMac? 

 

I use Vox music player which has simple equaliser but does not have L&R balance control. And my Dac and Amp do not have tone control either so only way to do this is from source (iMac).

 

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Thank you...

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1 hour ago, BATMAQN said:

You can probably adjust the output in the Audio MIDI setup I can't think of any other way to do it.

Thank you. I already tried and Midi does not have balance control as far as I can see. 

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I don't really use computer audio but I have had a look on my old Mac (10.6.8) and there is

 

1.  A balance slider in the sound control panel

2.  Left and right volume adjustments in Audio Midi Setup

3.  The Preferences/Audio/Basic tab in Vox has a balance slider

 

I would have thought that one or all of these would work unless Vox sneakily by-passes the normal audio output path.  In which case option 3 above should work.

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1 hour ago, aechmea said:

I don't really use computer audio but I have had a look on my old Mac (10.6.8) and there is

 

1.  A balance slider in the sound control panel

2.  Left and right volume adjustments in Audio Midi Setup

3.  The Preferences/Audio/Basic tab in Vox has a balance slider

 

I would have thought that one or all of these would work unless Vox sneakily by-passes the normal audio output path.  In which case option 3 above should work.

 

Thank you so much.  :thumb:   Option 3 works. Did not realise that they have preference tab to do finer control. 

 

Only downside is that it only works when my own music files played via Vox player. If music is played from Tidal or Spotify then Vox cannot be used. I might need to find a way to adjust L&R balance from the system.

 

Option #1 and #2 do not seem to have a way to control the balance.

 

Control Panel.png

Audio Midi.png

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Curiosity got the better of me and I went searching.

 

It appears that some versions of the Apple OS had difficulty with volume (and I presume 'balance') control on some external devices.

 

Maybe that is your situation with the interaction between your version of OSX and your Geek Out device.

 

Here is a thread that is similar to, but not the same as your symptoms

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7251027?start=0&tstart=0

and another

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7253151

 

Maybe you need to apply all of the OSX partial fixes for whatever release that you use, or go up a release+fixes.  Sounds a bit sledgehammery but one never knows.

 

Other observations ...

In your Audio Midi it shows '32-bit integer'. 

It shows L and R as Analog 1 and Analog 2.  Looks odd for digital USB output.

Are these correct/normal?  I dunno.

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6 hours ago, aechmea said:

Curiosity got the better of me and I went searching.

 

It appears that some versions of the Apple OS had difficulty with volume (and I presume 'balance') control on some external devices.

 

Maybe that is your situation with the interaction between your version of OSX and your Geek Out device.

 

Here is a thread that is similar to, but not the same as your symptoms

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7251027?start=0&tstart=0

and another

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7253151

 

Maybe you need to apply all of the OSX partial fixes for whatever release that you use, or go up a release+fixes.  Sounds a bit sledgehammery but one never knows.

 

Other observations ...

In your Audio Midi it shows '32-bit integer'. 

It shows L and R as Analog 1 and Analog 2.  Looks odd for digital USB output.

Are these correct/normal?  I dunno.

 

Thank you very much. I checked and I am suing MacOS High Sierra which is the latest version. 

 

The volume works fine either using external or internal dac. And either optical out or USB out. 

 

I think that I might need to get parametric EQ to control the balance L & R on system level. I will try to search for Free version to test.

 

Thank you again... :) 

 

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