My Kingdom For A Remote Volume Knob! can this be made?

[DrCWO]

I wonder if the Devialet can be set up for Roon like @DrCWO did for the MS Surface Dial? That would be an awesome setup.

Can not
I have one here but it is not Bluetooth. They haver their own secret wireless protocol

 

[Solveit]

I have one of these to my Windows PC works perfect and also with shifting firmware with a 5 sec klick
it works as MIDI controller to my DAW.

Park's TWO DIALS Kit / Customizable Keyboard / Volume, Media Control / Adobe / Craft, Macro Pad, Midi Controller / Diy / MCP / Sound Devices - Etsy Sweden

This Gadgets item by ParksTool has 129 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from Finland. Listed on Apr 9, 2023

www.etsy.com

There are many others that work similar at Etsy.

 

[mglobe]

Can not
I have one here but it is not Bluetooth. They haver their own secret wireless protocol

Bummer

 

[DrCWO]

I have one of these to my Windows PC works perfect and also with shifting firmware with a 5 sec klick
it works as MIDI controller to my DAW.

Park's TWO DIALS Kit / Customizable Keyboard / Volume, Media Control / Adobe / Craft, Macro Pad, Midi Controller / Diy / MCP / Sound Devices - Etsy Sweden

This Gadgets item by ParksTool has 129 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from Finland. Listed on Apr 9, 2023

www.etsy.com

There are many others that work similar at Etsy.

But we talk about WIRELESS volume controls here

 

[Solveit]

But we talk about WIRELESS volume controls here

Sorry for that but it's hard to even find an decent USB volume button...

 

[mglobe]

Can not
I have one here but it is not Bluetooth. They haver their own secret wireless protocol

Ok @DrCWO, here's another possibility? It looks like it communicates with Sonos via Wifi. Maybe forgo the BT connection, and find a way to get it to talk to Roon? It seems to have most if not all of the features that we want.

https://thebrennan.com/products/ezb

 

[DrCWO]

Is this really wireless?
I saw fotos with wire only

Edit:
Reread the whole documentation. It uses WiFi so not bad at all!
But to use it with Roon needs some software work. Either to implement a new Firmware in the device or build a bridge that simulates SONOS services. Should be possible but not soon.
I‘ll put it on my list.

Thank you for the hint.
Best DrCWO

 

[mglobe]

Is this really wireless?
I saw fotos with wire only

Edit:
Reread the whole documentation. It uses WiFi so not bad at all!
But to use it with Roon needs some software work. Either to implement a new Firmware in the device or build a bridge that simulates SONOS services. Should be possible but not soon.
I‘ll put it on my list.

Thank you for the hint.
Best DrCWO

I was thinking something like the bridge idea might be possible. Of course nothing is impossible for those who don’t have to do it (or in my case have no idea how to do it!).

 

[MattHooper]

UPDATE:

Whoa, what a journey! My custom IR remote w volume knob is finally working!

To re-cap why it took this long:

I'm in Canada and the custom company that made this remote for me is in Poland (Adams Custom Audio).

We "designed this" over emails. I wanted my CJ tube preamp to be controlled, my Benchmark pre-amp, and as a bonus, volume control for my AVR, picture control for Blu-Ray and Apple TV.

I sent all the remote codes to Adams, they constructed the remote (based on their existing remote design) and programmed everything how I wanted it.

Then shipped it to me. Problem was when I received it, everything worked great...except it wouldn't control volume on my Benchmark. The problem is the way this remote is built it wasn't programmable by the customer. (Which is fair enough: they were simply taking one of their remotes designed to work with their integrated amplifiers and re-programming one to try to control entirely different equipment). So they arranged to ship the OmniArc remote back to Poland along with the Benchmark remote, to figure out the problem and get it working.

BUT...once it was shipped to Poland it got stuck in some sort of customs hell. It was stuck for, I believe, months! We couldn't get it released either to move it on to Adams or get it back to me.

Finally it was released and shipped back to me (turned out to be easier than getting it back in to Poland...bizarre!).

Ok so what now? They came up with an idea of my sending them the Benchmark remote only, and I would purchase a USB programmer, that goes between the remote and the programming computer. Like this:

The idea is Adams would get the codes reliably off the Benchmark remote, examine how that remote worked, and then send me new programming based on what they found. I would use the USB programmer to flash the new hex commands on to the remote.

A friend of the company who happened to be in Toronto picked up the Benchmark remote and brought it to Adams in Poland. They looked at the remote, and sent me new programming.

And...it works! it finally all works!

Whew!

 

[MattHooper]

And now that it's working, I finally have the experience I wanted: A nice big solid wood remote, super comfy form factor, big smoothly rotating volume knob - rotate for volume, press knob for "dim" or "mute" functions, and it has other functions too described earlier in the thread.

I find it much more comfortable and easy using this remote than the two remotes for my pre-amps. It's always right by my side on the sofa, I don't have to search for the tiny remotes and find the volume buttons - I can instantly put my hand on the big volume button without even looking. Plus I find rotating a volume knob gives me better control over the volume, and a better sense of how much I turned up the volume, or down, if I want to quickly return it to the previous volume. So...happy customer.

The last piece of the puzzle is that right now to operate my equipment I'm using a long IR cable with a reciever at the remote end and transmitter at my equipment rack. I need to have that run down the floor and up to my listening room, like all my other AV cabling. I've got a bunch of other AV re-cabling to do, so hopefully I can get that all done in the next couple of months.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

UPDATE:

Whoa, what a journey! My custom IR remove w volume knob is finally working!

To re-cap why it took this long:

I'm in Canada and the custom company that made this remote for me is in Poland (Adams Custom Audio).

We "designed this" over emails. I wanted my CJ tube preamp to be controlled, my Benchmark pre-amp, and as a bonus, volume control for my AVR, picture control for Blu-Ray and Apple TV.

I sent all the remote codes to Adams, they constructed the remote (based on their existing remote design) and programmed everything how I wanted it.

Then shipped it to me. Problem was when I received it, everything worked great...except it wouldn't control volume on my Benchmark. The problem is the way this remote is built it wasn't programmable by the customer. So they arranged to ship the OmniArc remote back to Poland along with the Benchmark remote, to figure out the problem and get it working.

BUT...once it was shipped to Poland it got stuck in some sort of customs hell. It was stuck for, I believe, months! We couldn't get it released either to move it on to Adams or get it back to me.

Finally it was released and shipped back to me (turned out to be easier than getting it back in to Poland...bizarre!).

Ok so what now? They came up with an idea of my sending them the Benchmark remote only, and I would purchase one of these USB programmers:

Amazon.ca

The idea is Adams would get the codes reliably off the Benchmark remote, examine how that remote worked, and then send me new programming based on what they found. I would use the USB programmer to flash the new hex commands on to the remote. Like this:

View attachment 315797

A friend of the company who happened to be in Toronto picked up the Benchmark remote and brought it to Adams in Poland. They looked at the remote, and sent me new programming.

And...it works! it finally all works!

Whew!

Wow! Very very nice. So it's battery powered, right?

 

[MattHooper]

Wow! Very very nice. So it's battery powered, right?

Yes, couple of AA batteries.

I really like that it has an LED ring at the base of the knob that lights up when you send commands. Not only does it look cool, as described early in the thread, the color is programmable, so it will turn different colors depending on what equipment it's operating (e.g. blue for Benchmark commands, Red for CJ preamp, Green for my AVR...)

 

[Chromatischism]

A friend of the company who happened to be in Toronto picked up the Benchmark remote and brought it to Adams in Poland.

What a coincidence.

That one-off item is worth some $ for all the hours that went into it. Looks nice, too.

 

[Moderate Dionysianism]

That one-off item is worth some $

Good that he had a kingdom to spare

 

[MCH]

UPDATE:

Whoa, what a journey! My custom IR remote w volume knob is finally working!

To re-cap why it took this long:

I'm in Canada and the custom company that made this remote for me is in Poland (Adams Custom Audio).

We "designed this" over emails. I wanted my CJ tube preamp to be controlled, my Benchmark pre-amp, and as a bonus, volume control for my AVR, picture control for Blu-Ray and Apple TV.

I sent all the remote codes to Adams, they constructed the remote (based on their existing remote design) and programmed everything how I wanted it.

Then shipped it to me. Problem was when I received it, everything worked great...except it wouldn't control volume on my Benchmark. The problem is the way this remote is built it wasn't programmable by the customer. (Which is fair enough: they were simply taking one of their remotes designed to work with their integrated amplifiers and re-programming one to try to control entirely different equipment). So they arranged to ship the OmniArc remote back to Poland along with the Benchmark remote, to figure out the problem and get it working.

BUT...once it was shipped to Poland it got stuck in some sort of customs hell. It was stuck for, I believe, months! We couldn't get it released either to move it on to Adams or get it back to me.

Finally it was released and shipped back to me (turned out to be easier than getting it back in to Poland...bizarre!).

Ok so what now? They came up with an idea of my sending them the Benchmark remote only, and I would purchase a USB programmer, that goes between the remote and the programming computer. Like this:

View attachment 315797


The idea is Adams would get the codes reliably off the Benchmark remote, examine how that remote worked, and then send me new programming based on what they found. I would use the USB programmer to flash the new hex commands on to the remote.

A friend of the company who happened to be in Toronto picked up the Benchmark remote and brought it to Adams in Poland. They looked at the remote, and sent me new programming.

And...it works! it finally all works!

Whew!

Great you have it working!
In the long term you will be happy to have the programmer. In case you buy new equipment you "only" need to send them the codes and they can send you new firmware.
Btw, for regular ir remotes I don't see the need to send the remote back to Poland, you can easily extract the codes yourself with a raspberry pi or similar.

 

[gorman]

UPDATE:

Whoa, what a journey! My custom IR remote w volume knob is finally working!

To re-cap why it took this long:

I'm in Canada and the custom company that made this remote for me is in Poland (Adams Custom Audio).

We "designed this" over emails. I wanted my CJ tube preamp to be controlled, my Benchmark pre-amp, and as a bonus, volume control for my AVR, picture control for Blu-Ray and Apple TV.

I sent all the remote codes to Adams, they constructed the remote (based on their existing remote design) and programmed everything how I wanted it.

Then shipped it to me. Problem was when I received it, everything worked great...except it wouldn't control volume on my Benchmark. The problem is the way this remote is built it wasn't programmable by the customer. (Which is fair enough: they were simply taking one of their remotes designed to work with their integrated amplifiers and re-programming one to try to control entirely different equipment). So they arranged to ship the OmniArc remote back to Poland along with the Benchmark remote, to figure out the problem and get it working.

BUT...once it was shipped to Poland it got stuck in some sort of customs hell. It was stuck for, I believe, months! We couldn't get it released either to move it on to Adams or get it back to me.

Finally it was released and shipped back to me (turned out to be easier than getting it back in to Poland...bizarre!).

Ok so what now? They came up with an idea of my sending them the Benchmark remote only, and I would purchase a USB programmer, that goes between the remote and the programming computer. Like this:

View attachment 315797


The idea is Adams would get the codes reliably off the Benchmark remote, examine how that remote worked, and then send me new programming based on what they found. I would use the USB programmer to flash the new hex commands on to the remote.

A friend of the company who happened to be in Toronto picked up the Benchmark remote and brought it to Adams in Poland. They looked at the remote, and sent me new programming.

And...it works! it finally all works!

Whew!

This is such a thing of beauty... I'm astonished.

Does the company have a website? How much did you end up paying for this? You just gave me a bad, very bad case of buy-itis, just so you know... ;-)

 

[Knobstler]

This is such a thing of beauty... I'm astonished.

Does the company have a website? How much did you end up paying for this? You just gave me a bad, very bad case of buy-itis, just so you know... ;-)

I need one aswell

 

[gorman]

So, website should be https://adamscustomaudio.com/ but it's not operative at the moment.

Price, looking upthread, started from €750. I don't know if it changed during production due to custom requests and so on...

Very interesting and most definitely a great product from the looks of it. But I first need to fix my seating situation in the home theatre.
I completely underestimated the importance of comfy seats for my enjoyment of music and video. I have to rectify that.

 

[MattHooper]

I need one aswell

So, website should be https://adamscustomaudio.com/ but it's not operative at the moment.

Price, looking upthread, started from €750. I don't know if it changed during production due to custom requests and so on...

Yes that's the website. It was an active, attractive site when I first contacted the company, but they are working on updating the site. I'm still getting plenty of replies from the company, and they've just sent me some command modifications that I've asked for. I can't emphasize how great it's been to work with these guys.

One of the cool custom features I asked for was a mode in which the OmniArc control sends double commands at once. In that mode it sends volume commands both to my CJ preamp and the Benchmark amp, and I switch between hearing either preamp with a press of the volume knob.

The reason I asked for that mode is because I often like to switch between the two different presentations, one just the Benchmark direct, the other running through the CJ tube amp. The fact that the remote sends out volume commands at the same time means that I know I'm changing the volume on both preamps, so if I've turned the volume down or up on the CJ and switch back to the Benchmark, it will be the same volume. As opposed to playing around with volume on one, then switching to the other and it being too quiet or blasting me out of my chair too loud. This mode has a purple LED color around the base of the knob (we chose it because the Benchmark mode is blue, the CJ mode is red, so combined command mode is purple. With each turn of the knob the LED quickly flashes blue followed by red, indicating it's sending a command to each preamp).

This mode was a bit tricky, because the CJ preamp changes volume in .7dB increments and the Benchmark by .5dB. So volume changes won't track perfectly, but that's fine because it's just a mode for casual listening.

 

[Keith_W]

Yes that's the website. It was an active, attractive site when I first contacted the company, but they are working on updating the site. I'm still getting plenty of replies from the company, and they've just sent me some command modifications that I've asked for. I can't emphasize how great it's been to work with these guys.

I sent you a PM several months ago asking for the company's website. They had taken it down back then "new site coming soon", and it is still down now. I don't know why companies can't leave their old websites up and running while they work on a new one, it seems silly to lose business over a website that takes months to update. I can't imagine how much money it is going to cost them for not just simply putting up their old website as an interim measure.