Setting recording/playback levels

[deadwax]

I mentioned in a previous post that on my Akai 4000DS I had to wind the RH recording level knob much further clockwise than the left to see the same levels on the VU meter. I don’t have any test equipment but thought if I played a mono record and adjusted the gain of each channel with the knobs pretty much in the middle (and the same as each other) then they would at least be balanced. I then played this recording back through my hifi and adjusted the playback gain for each channel to be the same as the volume when playing the record (flicking between the two sources to compare). This worked but the recording levels are now different to each other on the VU meters (and at lower levels than before). It shouldn’t be a problem as long as I leave the knobs in the same position as each other when recording and ignore the actual levels on the VU meters but is there a better way (without test equipment) to do a simple calibration? Or perhaps I’m missing the point completely…

[deadwax]

I found another level adjustment on the back of the hi-fi and after reducing that and doing a couple more iterations I seem to have found a reasonable balance with good (similar) levels on the Vu meters during recording and playback. Every day is a learning day but I’ll get there.