I got my Echo Indigo for some time now. Every time i listen to it i hear that the sound is slightly panned to the right. I have a hard time putting my finger on it though.
It's like the left channel is a bit less bright that the right channel so it seems that more sound is coming from the right channel. Or maybe the left channel has mixed sound from the left and right channel or something like that.

The mixer settings should be alright (left channel panned completely to left and right channel completely to the right). Of course i could pan the right channel more to the left or lower the volume to "fix" the problem, but i'd rather not do that as it SHOULDN'T be necessary.

Has anyone else have this problem? Is my hardware faulty (or my ears)?

I use sennheiser px100 and hd595 with it, and i don't have this problems with other sounddevices. The Echo Indigo is the only device with headphone amp though and sounds better than the others, except for this panning problem.

sounds like either defect hardware or some driverissue.
Seems impossible that it is a systematic error in my view.

The problem is really bad when i put the volume to very low (almost mute) with the hardware volume knob. So i guess that the volume knop is broken.
At higher volume the problem almost goes totally away, but not completely.

Does anyone with an Echo Indigo has this problem?

Do you notice this problem with other hardware? If so, it is probably your heariing. Otherwise it is the player.

Had this problem several times but the reason was each time different
- my sony walkman had a poor volume knob (left-right shifting)
- on my irvier imp350 the left chennel is a bit louder, but my px100 has to have the right channel louder becouse i am not able to hear the difference on imp350 (i do hear it with other players)

Maybe you can hear the difference only on low volumes becouse of the logarithmic nature of hearing?

Can sometimes be tricky;)

Marcin

In general one has to pay rather a large amount for a volume control with channels that track equally. The errors are larger at low volume settings because the rate of change of the resistence is greater. Some types, such as deposited resistor arrays , tend to be much more accurate but not too easy to buy. Knowing that a really good potentiometer usually cost more than the soundcard, you can surmise that the one in your soundcard probably isn't top notch. Also, unit to unit variations are probably pretty high.

Even high end headphone amps have pot issues. Generally people who are really concerned about such things should switch to stepped attenuators. You'll pay a prohibitive expense getting one in commercial gear though (they cost $100 a pop). Although recently digitally-controlled volume controls (that still work in the analog domain) are becoming popular.

Cheap pots can track fine, for the most part. I've used plenty of cheap Alps RK09(aqua) pots, and most of them work perfectly so far as tracking. It's just that maybe 1 out of 4 or 5 have a problem and are not quite perfect. In those cases, you trash the ones with bad tolerances. The manufacturer should test each pot and reject the ones with excessive mis-tracking. But I realize they probably care more about using every last part to save money.

-Chris

Yes, that is sad, no? Sad that the high-end manufacture does not take 20 seconds to test the R difference of the pot between the L and R wiper at a few different positions before installing.

-Chris