Robert Baldwin wrote:

>Has Roger heard of a balance knob on his stereo?

Actually, I have dual mono, which allows me to do the same thing.  But to
what point? It's not as if the entire right side is too strong.  Just the
trombones.  And it's not as if they're too loud--at least, I don't think
that's it.  This sounds like a miking or mixing problem.

>That, in combination with a tick to the left on his treble knob, might
>take care of the sound imbalance problem

No can do.  Since I'm one of those stuffy audiophile purists (aka
neurotics) who believes in keeping the signal path as simple as possible,
I don't have balance controls on my preamp.  Thus, I'm at the mercy of
the recording, which is fine with me.  The good and great ones sound all
the better for the simplicity.  As for the poor ones and the ones with
problems, so be it.  Besides, I'm not sure bass/trebel controls would
help here for reasons noted above.  Perhaps an equalizer (essentially, a
sophisticated trebel/balance control) that could focus in and attenuate the
frequency range in which the trombones play would help, but that's not for
me.

>on the Bax recording (this is assuming, of course, that the Naxos version
>is worth fussing over in the first place!

Sadly, it might be. Perhaps Naxos can remix it. I did mention this to them.

>I have versions on Chandos and Lyrita and they're both tremendous!  The
>Bax First for me represents a sonic farewell to the innocence of Eduardian
>England and a rite of passage into the 20th century via the tragedy that
>was the "Great" War.)

Agreed on all counts, but adding Bax's grief over the execution of some
Irish friends in 1916.

Roger Hecht