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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?
twl
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Performance is the top priority. I must admit that I like my remote for the same reasons as stated by others but I wouldn't miss it if it were gone. I still shift gears in my real car.
bob_bundus
1,834 posts
 
remote is important - you don't know how much you'll like it until you have it, then won't want to do without anymore
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
I've owned a Blue Circle BC21 preamp which doesn't have a remote for almost a year. I guess the remote would be convenient and that's probably why Gilbert Yeung built one in to the newer units, but I've found that I can get around it since I usually listen only at 9 o' clock or somewhere between 8 and 9. I don't change the volume much so it'a not an issue for me. However, for my home theater I couldn't imagine living without my RC2000 mkII.
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
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.
stehno
1,453 posts
 
Well said, Onhwy61. Not to mention soldering the components AC wires directly to the service panel which is no less than 6 inches away that has nothing else soldered to it.

So much for the ivory tower syndrome.
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