Cassette deck balance control

[Martin Bush]

I am looking at various cassette decks to get an idea of what's out there and, thanks to the forum, am paying close attention to those with bias controls.

One thing I have noticed is that some allow you to alter the record balance.

Why would you actually want to do this? It's not like you can multitrack on them. Is there a good reason to look for a deck with this control or is it more a case of the manufacturer adding a feature to make them look hi-tec?

Martin

[paulsherwin]

Some decks have a balance control, while others have dual concentric or separate input level controls. They're there to rebalance the L-R input channels if necessary or desired. Usually you would have both channels set at the same sensitivity.

[Martin Bush]

Thanks Paul.

It's some years since I got hands on with a tape deck and I suppose that was a feature I erased from my memory

I know the purpose, but I suppose it also allows you to accidentally make an unbalanced recording of you leave it set incorrectly.

[Nickthedentist]

True, but as Paul says, every stereo cassette with manual level control makes some provision for making the levels on each channel approximately equal.

Probably most useful if recording from microphones, but it's not uncommon for some sources to be a bit off-balance (particularly pre-recorded cassettes!).

With a bit of practice, it's usually very obvious if it's set incorrectly as the meters will look lopsided.

Nick

[Martin Bush]

Fair enough.

I think it stood out as I was looking on specific models for bias and found balance more often. I've a fair bit of experience recording using mixing desks, multi-track recorders etc using balance or pan but I think the fact that I was studying the cassette decks closely made me think it was odd

[Nickthedentist]

"Balance" seemed to crop up in the later (1990s onwards) models. Older ones just had separate L & R level controls, sometimes concentric and friction-locked.