Does remote control degrade the sound of tube preamps?


Some preamp manufactures (e.g. CAT) don’t put remote controls in their preamps due to the supposed sound degradation. This could also be just an excuse. Do you think the sound quality is degraded with a remote? I am talking about an audible effect.

128x128chungjh

The remote control of the EAR-Yoshino 868 works just as @larryi describes: a motor manually moves the volume knob, affecting the sound of the pre-amp in no way. The remote's only other control is a mute button. Volume and mute are the only two functions I require from the remote of a pre-amp.

Do you think the sound quality is degraded with a remote? I am talking about an audible effect.

@chungjh 

@larryi got it right. It was for this very reason that we motorized our existing manual volume control in our MP-1.

Quality wise, there  are not that many extreme quality 'motorized volume pots' out there.

Recall the elaborate mechanism put in place by Charles & crew at Ayre, for their 'peak quality' remote control preamp.

It's not just isolation and separation of the motorization aspects from the rest of the circuitry in order to avoid any electrical or electromagnetic interference from said motorized circuitry.

it's the availability of high or peak quality remote control volume designs. They get very rare and in limited numbers, and thus very expensive, at the top of it all.

some go for relays and resistive ladders/arrays. Depending on the relays in use, this can be very very good sounding. But it can also be distinctly mediocre. Or even below the quality norm set for a $20 Alps plastic pot, the near ubiquitous blue version.

I believe that DACT makes a few remote versions of their discrete ladder designs. Which might be the most common peak quality oriented unit available right now, without going totally off the deep end.

Such a pot, depending on the applied version (customized, etc) might add $600 to an easy $1k, or more, to the final retail price of a given item.

@mapman 

Now what other impractical issues can we all worry about?

haha - well said... never underestimate the degree of audiophile ocd, er, curiosity...