Channel balance changes with volume on Clip +, buggy channel balance control?

[wiinippongamer]

I noticed that when the balance is set to anything other than 0.0 and you change the overall volume the channel balance also changes. I only found one other reference to this using the forum search from 2 years ago, but using an ipod classic:  Reply #7 http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=28946.0

Can anyone with a clip + confirm if they have this issue when setting channel balance? It's most easily noticed with mono tracks. Maybe it's there on other players too. I may upload a sound clip recorded with my MB line-in later.

Thanks in advance guys.

[saratoga]

I think balance is still implemented by changing the volume of the left and right channels by different amounts. 

Is the difference large?  My guess would be that since the clip only has +/- 1.5 dB volume settings, its possible that as you change the volume the balance could shift between the channels by 0.75 dB or so. 

[wiinippongamer]

It is pretty large for me, becomes too fatiguing to listen to for more than a few minutes. I only compensate for 1.2db in my right ear.

[saratoga]

Skimming the code, I think what will happen is that each channel's target volume will be computed as SetVolume*balance and then quantized to 1.5dB steps.  So probably what happens is that for some steps the volume could be off by up to 1.5 dB I think. 

If you're seeing more than that I'm not sure how it would happen. 

[wiinippongamer]

1.5db sounds about right for what I hear. Is there a fix planned for a future release?