Remotes: Who needs 'em?

Holz

If you're a "retro-grouch", all you have to do is toss the remote and be done with it.

Morgenholz, begging to differ with most above, the subject as well as your humorous prose touched a soft spot.

I assume the 56 button remote is there to outdo its neighbour, sporting a now insufficient 54 buttons...

There is, however, ONE near-indispensable function for a remote: volume control!

When listening to classical music, the difference in spl between the soft (ppp) & the loud (fff) passages is such that it warrants the use of the volume control. Remote volume is great as it keeps you minimally distracted from the music.

Morgenholz, I can appreciate your mindset in regard to functionality. Complexity is not the issue, or else we'd be in real trouble - a cell is a testament to specified complexity. However, it is no more complex than it needs to be, and fairly well designed, I'd say.

Sometimes designers, in the pursuit of absolute informational domnination of operability, have created remotes like you describe. Fifty-some buttons, while likely hyperbole, is not too far off the mark. I reveiwed the Ayon Audio CD-1, which is tremendously sweet sounding, but has a horribly cluttered remote. I suggested an additional remote with simplified functionality to eliminate the confusion.

Seems you're more upset with poor design, and feel the simplest/cleanest method is preferable, and that we've become far too lazy in the modern world. I wholeheartedly agree that we're too lazy. However...

Two thoughts: I prefer having a remote, as I often adjust the level while listening, sometimes between individual tracks. Truthfully, many times I am thankful for a remote as I excercise vigorously daily, and many times in the evening I am exhausted, and simply want to relax and physically rest while listening. Frankly, it's a pain in the ass to have high end gear which does not allow me to control its functions from the listening chair.

Also, whatever gains/losses due to a component having or not having remote pales in comparison to the system synergy. One IC can make as much difference as the presence or absence of a remote. One power cord can do the same. I have heard in my rig a few pre/amps/integrateds which are remote controlled and sound every bit as good, considering ALL parameters, as some high dollar, low watt SET amps!

I would not go so far as to say that a remote control option on a pre, for example, fails the Law of Efficacy - in other words makes so little difference that one cannot hear the distinction. However, there are so many variables in the rig/system that the remote is a very small compensation acoustically to be made for the huge amount of convenience it provides. If only pre/integrateds without remotes were superior, I'd use only them. However, that is not the case, and there is no roadmap to the perfect/ideal sound of a rig with or without remote.

Being a molecular biologist, you should be able to appreciate more than most the nuances I have described in relation to the system and a remote's functionality within it. After all, you did not actually take the position of a remote damaging the sound of the rig. Your concern seemed to be more or less with the fat-ass humans not using their wonderfully arranged molecular structures to get excercise. Poor life management.

I excercise, but when I want to relax and am dead tired, I LOVE the remote! :)

OK-- Now we're getting somewhere! I'll attempt to address some of the more thoughtful comments and questions that are emerging. There are three operatives here, in ascending order of relevance:

1. No Hyperbole! The preamp in question is a Rotel RC-995-- perhaps at best a mid-fi piece to most of you, but purchased to match a RT-990 and RCD-991 that do perform at hi-fi levels, and because it synergizes very well sonically with the two amps that I intend to use with it. However, I did make a mistake-- there are actually 57 buttons on the remote, not 56 as my stultified eyes first estimated. Before any of you technocrats or others who have a firm grasp of the obvious jump on me, the remote is indeed designed to control other Rotel components, including four video sources (components that ALREADY have their own remotes) from one large, 57-button, James T. Kirk-style console.

Now, I am IN TOTAL AGREEMENT with those of you who find a volume and mute very handy, as well as a track selector for a CD player (why not go ahead and manipulate the program content of a convenience medium?). The critical volume buttons are just two among the 57. The mute button is a tiny one just under the power button. So, the most important, and arguably the only important, controls on the whole stupid thing represent less than 6% of the expanse of little plastic buttons. The first six track selector buttons are dual-function to allow you to alternatively select from up to six discs in a carousel changer. To bring you this vast array of perceived personal control (and today's marketing is all about the perception of personal choice and control*), these buttons actuate switches that are of no better quality than the fifty or so that you will NEVER USE, once you memorize the location of the relevant, cheap little buttons (I do like listening in dim light with a glass of cab or zin or IPA). Miss the mute, and your power goes off. As far as the other fifty or so, you go ahead and memorize their functions and locations, taking care not to confuse them with those of your other devices...

2. Yes, indeed we are becoming a more physically lazy and nutritionally decrepit society as a whole, but this is not the intent of my comments. I am far more upset with the INTELLECTUAL laziness and decrepitude that would allow a manufacturer to actually produce such a monument to idiocy, as well as anyone who would consider fifty-seven (not including dual-function) buttons better than, say, six or seven. While I'm confident that some of you can tell yourselves "Who cares about the other fifty-four? I'll just use the volume and mute," every time we buy something like this, the marketers and designers produce the next iteration with 62 buttons and five video inputs-- all they have to do is make the volume and mute buttons smaller. After all, 0.003% of the potential buyers may in fact be bedridden or legless.

3. I have been through some tough situations and can certainly live a meaningful life knowing that there is an unused remote (actually several!) in the carton(s) in my basement. However, I am concerned that this is just a signpost on the road we are being cattle-prodded down. Once I begin buying new, well-made, bona-fide hi-end, will I even have the choice? Will a 115-button control center be considered a default afterthought whose advantages would be lost on only a smelly troll living in a bomb shelter? I would NOT have bought this piece new for the above reasons-- Don't feed the bears, as they say.

Mr. Schroeder, you hit it squarely on its pointy head-- a cell is quite complex, but no more complex than it needs to be to function efficiently in its environment.

Do any of you cats REALLY sit down not knowing whether you intend to watch movies, listen to FM, do some dubbing, or spin a CD or maybe some vinyl, and just switch between the sources, channels, and programs as all of the components run? Personally, I usually know what I intend to do before I take action...

Reminds me of three dear relatives (all male) who have cable or satellite and very large-screen televisions, or flat screen monitors, or whatever people with more time than brain cells call them. They sit down, grab the remote and some beverage that TV commercials tell them to drink, and proceed to change channels methodically, never, ever settling on one and absorbing whatever paltry cerebral nutrient might be available. The only time they do tacitly settle on one program is when the family and/or guests are eating or temporarily engaged in some conversation. This is what the concept of remotes and electronic "entertainment" has done to their brains, and their bodies are following. I do not ask my audio equipment to babysit me while I drink Diet Mountain Dew.

*Perceived personal control... Reminds me of a neurologist with whom I was talking, who said that the wife of one of his Alzheimer's patients pleaded with him, "Stop giving him those Viagras. He takes one, then I have to hide until he forgets what he took it for."

No wonder I go for my turntables 99% of the time now...

it is very impressive you took time to count the number of buttons on that remote.

and even if it has 156 or 256 buttons, why would you want to fiddle with this remote while listening? You say you want to relax while listening. Don't you just use the remote to adjust volume and mute the unit? or if you don't like the remote, don't use it! it's pretty simple.

you complain about people who flip through TV channels? That you think is bad? Counting buttons on your remote control isn't bad, ha?

A clear case of OCD.