Hi there - wondering if anyone can provide a clue as to why my left speaker is louder than the right. I installed foobar2000 on my laptop and PC. I am using Schiit DAC and is linked via USB to my laptop and played through my tube amps. The left speaker is louder than the right. All my music were downloaded from CDs or from sites and saved to USB drive. When I play the CD and of course I switched the output to S/PDIF or Toslink, there is no such issue. Another test was done but this time I connected the USB drive to my PC without linking the Schiit DAC. Again the left speaker seems louder than the right.
I'm not clear on what your problem is. Are you saying the imbalance only exists when you are playing through your USB drive? When you play a CD the issue is nonexistent? When you play through the computer without the USB drive in line, is the problem not there? So everything is balanced until the USB drive comes into play? And you used foobar to download to the drive, right?
If all of that is correct, then you would first suspect the program used to copy the data to the drive. I would do another copy to the harddrive of the computer and check playback levels with a pair of headphones. I would also make a copy using another software program, Windows Media Center should be fine for a check. There's nothing in particular that would cause a channel imbalance in the cable so it would be the last thing I would suspect. And the storage device should not be capable of discriminating between left and right channels.
Ideally, your test signal should be mono material to ensure equal levels at the output of the system.