Life without a remote

In 1980, my Navy roommate (uncle Chuck) and I were approached by a salesman putting the hard sell on us to buy a remote controlled tv.

Chuck acted very annoyed, stared the guy down and said in a stern voice 'sir, the day I am too dang lazy to tell my wife and kids to adjust the tv- I'll buy one!'

Uncle Chuck was a funny guy..,,

About two years ago I was looking for a preamp to replace  my McCormack RLD 1 preamp , which was no slouch to begin with.  It was a full featured remote pre,  although I never really like it's digital volume I did appreciate it having a remote.  I came across the Conrad Johnson Classic 2SE,  a stripped down pre, no remote,  just a source selector and conventional volume control.   I had some reservation about going from a fully remote pre to such a stripped down design.  After listing to it in what was probably a $50k system it was clear that this pre was a keeper and that sound not features were more important.  On top of that several of my sources had remote variable line out so when I was too lazy to get my ass off the couch I could still at least control the volume.   I could have maybe stretched my budget and bought an ET3 but I wanted an SE with upgraded Teflon caps and Vishay resistors, which was $1500 more than the base SE. For me the Classic was just what I was looking for, I don't regret it one bit.    

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...ucledemp, you killed me! That was too funny...
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Never had a remote for preamp only CD player system sounds wonderful.

Years ago I thought I might design a remote called the "Knobulater." A small box with a pulley which allows a rubber belt to run from it to the volume knob…controlled by a remote to drive the belt and switch direction. Zero degradation except to my dignity if the thing failed. Clearly, I was (and am) too lazy to follow through with this, but hey…there ya go.