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

To be clear, adding remote control functionality to volume control does not degrade sound, but, if providing that feature means cost cutting on some other aspect of product, that could hurt the sound quality.  If providing remote volume control means going with an inferior potentiometer that has a motor built into it, instead of a superior manual potentiometer, that would hurt the sound.  I have a $1,000 Alps RK 50 manual potentiometer in my headphone amp.  If a builder wants a motorized version, the builder would have to engineer this and modify the potentiometer at considerable cost to so do.  That means it is "possible" to get that level of quality, but it might not be that practical.  

 Does this mean that MP3 does not have motorized volume control?

@chungjh It has a motorized control too.

I happily use an Atma-Sphere MP-1 with a motorized remote volume.

I could not live without a remote. Am constantly adjusting the volume.

Motorized Alps RK50 like in my VAC Master - no. Motorized stepped attenuator like in the old Rogue Hera / Athena - no, but it was klunky to use as the control sucked. Digital volume controls like in the ARC Reference, there’s no additional penalty in the remote control ability. Many tube amps will use the motorized Alps RK27 pot out of convenience and cost considerations. There’s no additional penalty over the non-motorized RK27 but that pot is NOT the most transparent part; you can definitely hear the improvement with a better pot or stepped attenuator.

Really good motorized analog controls are expensive, hence the prevalence of digital controls these days.