How do people handle audio volume without a remote controller?

[antennaguru]

Why is there not a clamp on (on chassis and knob), battery powered little motor with remote offered anywhere? Wouldn't look nice, but having remote controlled volume is nicer.

These were a DIY project a couple/few decades ago. Now you can buy a motorized Alps pot with the controller board, IR receiver, and remote for $30-40, and just retrofit it into your vintage preamp that lacks remote volume control.

In the oldern days you could buy two sprockets or pulleys that attach to a 1/4 inch potentiometer shaft like a knob from Small Parts Inc, along with the requisite drive belt or polymer chain…

 

[antennaguru]

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/13095789-volume-control-technologies

The big problem with analog solutions is channel balance at low levels

Yes, older worn potentiometers often don’t track both channels with the same resistance at the low volume end of their adjustment range. I was recently working on a nice Nakamichi preamp that had this fault, and one channel actually went silent before the other channel. I just replaced the worn pot with one of these drop-in SMD resistor step attenuators and all was well.

SMD Steeped-in Attenuator DACT Type 21 step Volume Control 10-250K Potentiometer | eBay

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[JRS]

Wait for my wife to finish her beer.

 

[krumpol]

[..] my hands are very close to keyboard and mouse.

At night, I can't see the volume knob at all, so I have to adjust software volume.

Lift your mouse up, use the light generated by its optical sensor.

 

[ZolaIII]

Now I mostly use app (Music Cast) with phone volume buttons with my Yamaha R-N402D which i got recently. It works on blind and at night only downside is the app nead to be up front for volume buttons to work (of course while being connected to the same WiFi router). It also has independent (per source) input volume stage of its own which is very useful as it's a AB stage amp which needs to be pushed hard enough to get a dynamic range of main amp stage (8W at 6 Ohm's which can be a rather much at late night). This helps when you for instance want to get there on lower listening lv or with anaemic sources (South of 2V out). Unfortunately the pre input stage is only available with physical control's on either unit or it's remote and not with app but that is not a big deal.
How much and how often you need volume control is surce dependant from which Digital TV is the worst one (not that radio is much better) so you need controls (preferably digital) at hand and use them rather frequently.

 

[egellings]

Optical sensor on my liddle maus is infrared. Shoot!

 

[Jimbob54]

I don't and wouldn't want to. If forced to I would prefer to get up and turn the amp knob more than (get up and adjust) the fiddly dac buttons or pc controls.

But as it is, a remote keyboard and /or remote for the dac suits me just fine. I've seen talk of standalone remote attenuators but I wouldn't add anything else into the chain if there were existing options.

 

[dkinric]

For Roon users, you can use a Microsoft Surface Dial as a volume and play/pause/next control. This is pretty cool, I like the idea of just a large, heavy volume knob sitting on the table next to me that can be placed anywhere:

rooDial

 

[MattHooper]

If I'm listening to digital I set my CJ preamp to a certain volume and use my digital volume on my streaming app.

If I'm listening to vinyl I control volume via my RTI universal controller - IR to my CJ preamp.