Left and Right Monitors sound different

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philbagg

philbagg

Just Killing Time
I have two KRK Rokit 5's, both bought from Thomann (one single purchase). I was doing some mixing, and I noticed the balance was a little off. I've checked the input gain on the monitors (both 0dB), and the HF Response (both 0). Then I set up one mono track in Pro Tools, and pulled the left channel of a song onto it (Pearl Jam - Even Flow), and started panning hard left and right. They sound different. There's a different response in the bass end (probably due to the left speaker being in a corner - I know, I'm a bad person :o ) But there's also a different response in the upper mids, and probably some other stuff I can't make out yet.

I thought it could have been the MBox 2, but I've tested the left speaker on its own by panning left in Pro Tools with the speaker cable plugged into the left output, and panned right with the (left) speaker plugged into the right output, and it sounds the same, so that kind of eliminates the MBox 2 (sorry if that sounded confusing)

Any ideas?
 
Yo BaggDude :D

sounds like yer a bad person and need ta get your monitors outta the corner. :D

Do you have treatment to help balance? Bass traps to the left n right?

Beer in da fridge?

:D
 
Dogbreath said:
Yo BaggDude :D

sounds like yer a bad person and need ta get your monitors outta the corner. :D

Do you have treatment to help balance? Bass traps to the left n right?

Beer in da fridge?

:D
Click to expand...

I do not :o I've got very little money as a student :drunk: and I'm not sure how well my room would be able for treatment. The back wall of the room is 3 wardrobes (6 doors), so I can't really put anything across those.

And trust me, I know the importance of room treatment, but it'll be a little while before I get around to it :rolleyes:

But if that's affecting the sound of the 2 monitors and making them sound different to each other, I'll know when I get a chance to take them out and put them in the middle of the room in the same spot and A/B them there.

Also, bit of unrelated/pointless information, but I have an eye stye, and it's f**king annoying :mad: Just needed to get that off my chest :p

Edit: I do have beer in the fridge :D
 
Styes are annoying as hell. :mad:

I used to get those when I'd french kiss my dog....


hey....wait a minute.....yer not.....uh...


:laughings:


and on my side note....I can still play a kazoo with my butt. :cool:
:D
 
Dogbreath said:
Styes are annoying as hell. :mad:

I used to get those when I'd french kiss my dog....


hey....wait a minute.....yer not.....uh...


:laughings:


and on my side note....I can still play a kazoo with my butt. :cool:
:D
Click to expand...

There's no applause smiley :mad:

You'll have to take this as the sound of hands clapping :spank:

:laughings:
 
Are there any switches to change monitor attributes on the back? My BX8's had some switches that I didn't know about until I boxed them up because I sold them. And of course they were not set to the same setting.

Beyond that, putting some sort of attenuation between the soundcard and monitors helps keep things sane. I've got an HP4 that does that plus 4x headphone outs. Comes in handy as I set the monitors levels once, then use mono, mute, and volume as needed on the HP4. (damn telemarketers...). It makes it much nicer when there's only one knob to turn for two speakers. Using software settings is so much of a hassle in comparison.

I don't trust the knobs on the speakers either. In linux I run "$ speaker-test -c 2" (part of alsa) to put white noise(or was it pink?) left then right and over and over until I feel they're mostly matched (to my ears). Then I leave them at that setting. It also lets me know if I have my channels reversed. Oops. Various means to various ends.

And it helps to maintain symmetry if possible. Having a good room is a plus as well.
 
Is even flow the only song that you tested your monitors with and found this anomaly? Or are there other songs you found this to happen with during monitoring?



:cool:
 
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Run a mono source through them and see if this is still the case.

And yeah, if you've got only one speaker in the corner, aint nothing gonna be balanced between the two of them.
 
Shadow_7 said:
Are there any switches to change monitor attributes on the back? My BX8's had some switches that I didn't know about until I boxed them up because I sold them. And of course they were not set to the same setting.

Beyond that, putting some sort of attenuation between the soundcard and monitors helps keep things sane. I've got an HP4 that does that plus 4x headphone outs. Comes in handy as I set the monitors levels once, then use mono, mute, and volume as needed on the HP4. (damn telemarketers...). It makes it much nicer when there's only one knob to turn for two speakers. Using software settings is so much of a hassle in comparison.

I don't trust the knobs on the speakers either. In linux I run "$ speaker-test -c 2" (part of alsa) to put white noise(or was it pink?) left then right and over and over until I feel they're mostly matched (to my ears). Then I leave them at that setting. It also lets me know if I have my channels reversed. Oops. Various means to various ends.

And it helps to maintain symmetry if possible. Having a good room is a plus as well.
Click to expand...

I've checked all the settings on the back and they're matched. I might run some white noise through them and see if I can get it better matched, although the only options are input gain and high frequency response, and my problem isn't with either of them. The only other switches are the voltage (which is set correctly on both) and the on/off which I doubt could be the problem.

moresound said:
Is even flow the only song that you tested your monitors with and found this anomaly? Or are there other songs you found this to happen with during monitoring?



:cool:
Click to expand...

I've tested other songs and it's been the same result, but I don't see how it should matter since I was only taking the left channel and testing it through both. Same channel, same looped part, same speaker, so in theory it should sound the same :confused:

TeyshaBlue said:
Run a mono source through them and see if this is still the case.
Click to expand...

That's what I did :cool:

And yeah, if you've got only one speaker in the corner, aint nothing gonna be balanced between the two of them.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I really should sort that out :o
 
Looks like you checked up stream by swapping connections, how about swapping speakers now? Seems like that would prove if it's the location or the speaker as the difference.
(I have a slight issue like that I'd like to get to here, but these suckers are eighty five pounds a piece..:o
 
Start by switching the cables, so the left signal comes out of the right speaker, and vice versa. If there's no change, your problem probably isn't the speakers. If there is a change, and it reverses the effect, your problem probably isn't the corner.-Richie
 
I was actually thinking of taking them away from the walls altogether and putting them in the middle of the room, nearly side by side (away from corners or walls) and testing them there. If they still sound different, I'll swap outputs on the Mbox 2, then I'll swap cables, and try and eliminate as many possibilities as possible. Any problems I could run into there?
 
My room has a "built in no symetry" (a door in the left of rear wall) and, despite the monitors and bass treatment (20 bass traps) are as symetric as possible, response of both speakers is different due to this door (for sure that I swap the monitors to check if they´re "ok" , and frequency response doesn´t change)

Best way to see if there´s a diference in the monitors is to measuring each one with a software (like REW)positioning they exactly in the same place.

*different distances of adjacents walls will give you a totaly different response - principally in the lows.

Ciro
 
Sounds like a plan. :) Stick em right up against each other, you're going for relative difference, and that will remove all the room placement issues and not need repositioning.
Be aware too the effect of your listening position. (try a single low-mid tone, swing your head several inches either side..
Back to ya. :drunk:
 
It almost sounds like the channel in question has the phase reverse switch engaged maybe on the speaker or internal setting of your computer.




.Have you tried changing out your ears? :eek: :laughings: :eek:



:cool:
 
moresound said:
It almost sounds like the channel in question has the phase reverse switch engaged maybe on the speaker or internal setting of your computer.




.Have you tried changing out your ears? :eek: :laughings: :eek:



:cool:
Click to expand...

Well it can't be a phase problem, I checked one speaker at a time.

Yeah I might go down the Van Gogh route and see if it improves my artistic abilities :p :D
 
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