I was also thinking about a further explanation. Way back when we used VU meters and head phones on remotes and speakers in recording booths. We listened to the direct sound of the speaker in most cases. Headphone listening could be compromised do to leakage and recordings monitored in booths doesn't represent what we hear at home. We did't have spectral displays to monitor. So recordings with Violins on each side and violas and cellos more in the middle were easier than with the violins all stacked on one side where recordings could not be well balanced .
Plus what is to be done with home systems that are asymmetrically placed in a room. What about rooms with unbalanced acoustics. Not only do have to change the level of each side but the tonality in addition. If I had my way the graphic tone controls would be split, too, left and right. Old Columbia, London, Decca, and even DG recordings could use just a touch more HF emphasis for the right channel sometimes. I rely miss my old SS preamp with split stepped tone controls. The issue was the steps were, to large, 3 db instead a preferred 1 db.
The first audio file I ever met made notes on special forms he had printed up 1000 at a time that he inserted with the lp in the record jacket. The notes were typed by his secretary at work on the printed form. Tone control settings, balance settings, were noted for each album, with spaces for special mentions for each cut on the disc. He had boxes for up dates, dates of purchase, number of plays, if the disk had been dubbed, etc etc, He was a Surgeon, and you couldn't read his hand writing.
He would pull out a disc, place it on a warmed up Empire TT, set the settings on his Model 7C, adjust a special control for his center channel sit down and turn on a switch supplying power to his turn table. If he was happy he would listen to the entire side. If not, he would grab a clip board making notes or stop the recording change settings and repeat the process making further notes. Then his secretary would type up a new page for the album. After he passed on I got to chose some of my favorites from his collection. Sadly I gave them away with my the first collection of LP's. He would have been in heaven with the capabilities of todays modern home theatre processors , with pass through circuits of remote controllable tube stereo pre-amps. That was 50 years ago, come to think of it.
When attending live concerts you have visual clues that control and explain imbalances in the listing experience you don't have at home. A lot of times what the director, producer and engineer hear in the mixing booth, doesn't represent a live performance you attend. They emphasize soloists, and sectional playing, throughout the performance really confusing the listener at home. You can't correct for that, but having a balance control, and tone controls gives you a fighting chance. One example is the over all balance of the Telarc Recordings made in Baltimore. Its not so much a balance problem left to right, but a performance recorded in a very hard dry venue. If you have ever listened to the Morman Tabernacle Choir accompanied by the Pipe organ you would immediately recognize engineers are playing games. The real sound of the organ is rather dull and muffled as experienced in the hall in the vast majority of listening locations. Its obvious they use a combination of specially chosen mics with a very flexible mixing board to get the final blend and voicing they want. Most of the time they are very successful. I always thought early recordings weren't as revealing as recordings made after SS and digital recording techniques had been mastered.
Take a Xanax.
