This is very much a personal preference issue with no real right or wrong opinion. For myself I think a remote control is mandatory. Convenience is important, but the ability to set volume and channel balance from the listening spot are true audiophile considerations. Until I acquired the Rowland Concentra I never had a component that allowed for remote balance control. I never really thought much of it, but now I consider it an essential feature. It amazing what just a slight adjustment in channel balance can do to the stereo aspects of a recording.
Is Remote Control Important?
How important is Remote Control to you when selecting components for your system. Do you consider buying products that don't have Remote Control, or only ones that do? If you had the choice of a CD player that was the best sounding, but had no Remote Control capability, would you buy it? Or would you buy the next best thing that had a Remote Control.
One reason why I ask this is, I have a friend who just sold me his entire LP collection because he said that he would never play them again, because he would have to get up off the couch to change records. When this same friend's reciever broke, I offered to loan him one of mine, but he refused because it had no Remote Control, and he would have to get up to change the volume. In his opinion, no music was better than having to get up to change the volume. And no amount of performance would substitute for a Remote Control.
Is this a predominant view in the audiophile world? Is convenience more important than performance?
One reason why I ask this is, I have a friend who just sold me his entire LP collection because he said that he would never play them again, because he would have to get up off the couch to change records. When this same friend's reciever broke, I offered to loan him one of mine, but he refused because it had no Remote Control, and he would have to get up to change the volume. In his opinion, no music was better than having to get up to change the volume. And no amount of performance would substitute for a Remote Control.
Is this a predominant view in the audiophile world? Is convenience more important than performance?
Showing 4 responses by onhwy61
I imagine that it's a rare audiophile who doesn't trade some measure of sonic performance for convenience. After all, are your cables welded to your components, or do you allow yourself the flexibility to easily change them out? Why have a volume control? If you were really serious wouldn't you just solder in and out a single set of resistors every time you wanted to change level? A source selector switch on a preamp is clearly a source of sonic degradation. If sonics was paramount, then wouldn't you cut your welded interconnects and weld on the interconnects from the new component? You can see where I'm going with this. Clearly convenience does play a factor. |
Twl, I'm not really sure there's such a clear cut distinction between convenience and performance. Consider tonearm VTA adjustments. Since getting VTA spot on is critical to performance and the correct setting can differ from record to record, then is an adjustable VTA feature a performance item or is it convenience? At first it appears to be a performance issue, but if the adjustment cannot be easily, accurately and quickly performed, in other words conveniently, then how likely is the user to optimally adjust the VTA? In other words the lack of convenience could lead to lowered performance. (Didn't someone actually make a tonearm with remote control adjustable VTA?) Regarding cost, nothing is for free, and a properly implemented, audiophile remote control that covers just the basic preamp functions (source, volume, balance and mute) has to increase the price. I imagine that for purist oriented tube equipment that the added cost can be quite significant. |
Twl, check out the Townsend Audio website. They just introduced a remote controlled, motorized VTA adjustment. http://www.townshendaudio.com/products/rockreference/rockreference.htm |