NAC 82 volume imbalance at very low volume

[Suedkiez]

It’s normal on the lowest range of travel with the Alps pots that Naim chooses. It just shouldn’t be excessive. My new 252 was unbalanced up to the volume pot being at 7:45-8:00, and that’s an already principally usable volume that I actually do use in the night. My dealer’s demo unit on the other hand happens to be dead center down to nearly zero volume.

I asked to look into mine, it went back to distributor for a few days, who replaced my pot with a selected one from those they had in stock. It’s still not perfect but improved so that the imbalance only occurs at low enough levels I don’t really use (and would not sound very good if I did. And in case I did on rare occasions, using the balance knob is not a big pain)

E.g. see first part of Richard’s post here:

SN3 Channel Imbalance

Setting aside any possible low level imbalance in the volume pot over the very first bit of travel, with a mono signal at normal volume and the balance knob perfectly centred L+R output should be equal. Of course, any slight imbalance between each speaker combined with any acoustic imbalance from the room can change that, and then add any slight imbalance from either source equipment or media, and perceptible imbalance can result - it’s why a balance control is sometimes rather nice to have.