• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Remotes, remotes, remotes...

killdozzer

Major Contributor
Joined
Aug 2, 2020
Messages
1,615
Likes
1,628
Location
Zagreb
(for European members) I'll try to make this a careful recommendation. There are some pros and cons. You decide.

If judging by the ads all around the world, remotes get lost at an amazing rate. For some older audio units, it's often hard to find a replacement and sellers use this fact (abuse this fact) to raise the price sky-high. A hundred bucks for a remote? No, thank you. Another thing is, I'm not all that satisfied with universal remotes as they often cover only a few basic functions even when they're labeled compatible with your gear. (This may be my own experience.)

There's a shop I found on the Internet that sells replicas of the remotes you might need.

Duremote.jpg


I bought one and this is based on what I found about it. Functionality gets the highest grade, but there's not an ounce of ownership joy, let alone pride.

Replica, as I came to understand, would imply that the entire button "inventory" was transplanted from the original remote. To me, this was quite a pleasant surprise as I uncovered some things about my CD player I didn't know before. (like the fact that the small knob next to the headphones input is motor-driven and you can change gain from your chair while listening to your music)

IdeSam.jpg

The CD player in question is the Sony XA5ES and it is a model which boasted with many different ways to set playback program. All these features are available with this remote, even the songs with a higher number than 9. There's a "shift" button which makes secondary functions available. Primary functions marked ON the buttons and then the secondary marked bellow a button, reachable after pressing shift. (no need to hold it, it's toggle off/on)

It works very well. By this I mean that I've noticed some remotes, even with new batteries, need a hard press on the button and will not react on a gentle one. This is not the case with this Duremote. It is very responsive.

Now the build quality. Simply put, there is none. It's just very basic plastic, cheap, with bulky rubber buttons, you can see traces of mixing frozen in the plastic (you know the ones), I doubt it would go unharmed if dropped and even the said functions are poorly pressed onto the housing as you can see in the pic.
Meh.jpg


Overall, I enjoy functionality and I'm very happy with my purchase BUT because it was cheap. Otherwise, I really don't like stuff made in such a poor manner.

Under the "hood" you can find a screw to keep the battery cover in place. You can also find indentation for something you can't find. And then there's the mysterious type Micro - B port for which it is very hard to find instructions of what it does. I'm guessing it's for imprinting the functions onto a blank remote.
ThingsYouFindThingsYouDont.jpg



There you have it. You can have your gear once again working as intended when it was produced, but you shouldn't expect this remote to raise value when you're selling. I received it in a week, but this is good considering Czech Republic is not very well connected with roads with my country and it is not exactly near by.

If I can let my imagination run wild, I wish the company offered this service with a better model of a remote. They wouldn't have to make them in advance, it could be on request. I'd opt for a more solid piece of gear.
 
Last edited:

restorer-john

Grand Contributor
Joined
Mar 1, 2018
Messages
12,579
Likes
38,280
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Take those Varta "made in Germany" Alkaline AAs and throw them away. I mean get rid of them, fast. You will thank me.

They are the absolute worst, nastiest leaking bastard batteries the world has ever seen. I bought way too many of them and have cleaned up or written off too much gear where those cells were installed.

They have DESTROYED multi hundred dollar Nikon flashes, remotes, torches, radios and even some of my (and my friends) test gear.

Varta batteries are utter and complete leaking chit. The absolute worst in terms of premature leakage. Long before their so-called use by date. Years in fact.

Never, ever trust their batteries.

Varta. Just don't do it. Ever.
 
OP
killdozzer

killdozzer

Major Contributor
Joined
Aug 2, 2020
Messages
1,615
Likes
1,628
Location
Zagreb
Take those Varta "made in Germany" Alkaline AAs and throw them away. I mean get rid of them, fast. You will thank me.

They are the absolute worst, nastiest leaking bastard batteries the world has ever seen. I bought way too many of them and have cleaned up or written off too much gear where those cells were installed.

They have DESTROYED multi hundred dollar Nikon flashes, remotes, torches, radios and even some of my (and my friends) test gear.

Varta batteries are utter and complete leaking chit. The absolute worst in terms of premature leakage. Long before their so-called use by date. Years in fact.

Never, ever trust their batteries.

Varta. Just don't do it. Ever.
Thank you for your advice and concern. It's very nice of you. I will avoid them in the future, but I must say I'm surprised by your experience, I never had any problems. Never lost anything bc of Varta batteries.

Anyway, I do believe you and think you're saying this as an honest advice, so this will be the last batch for me. (Is it possible they get produced in several different factories and this could account for our different experiences?)

Since they didn't leak so far, I'll probably go through what I have.

Out of Panasonic, Philips, Duracel and GP which are available to me, what would you recommend?
 

-Matt-

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Nov 21, 2021
Messages
675
Likes
551
I think Eneloops are made by Panasonic - they are great but they are especially suited to higher power devices such as torches. They may have a relatively fast rate a charge loss whilst the remote is just sitting and not being used.

Edit: The above caveat seems to apply particularly to the Eneloop Pro batteries. The Standard ones should hold their charge a bit longer.
 
Last edited:
D

Deleted member 21114

Guest
I think Eneloops are made by Panasonic - they are great but they are especially suited to higher power devices such as torches. They may have a relatively fast rate a charge loss whilst the remote is just sitting and not being used.
They're low self-discharge Ni-MH (70% after 10 years is their claim).
 
OP
killdozzer

killdozzer

Major Contributor
Joined
Aug 2, 2020
Messages
1,615
Likes
1,628
Location
Zagreb
One other thing I must mention, customer service is great. You don't even have to contact them, they contact you to ask if you're satisfied. They are very nice. A great customer experience.
 

MCH

Major Contributor
Joined
Apr 10, 2021
Messages
2,581
Likes
2,197
The white Ikea 2450 mAh rechargeables that state "made in Japan" are Eneloop Pro rebranded, and are very common in ikea EU shops. The rest of eneloops in amazon.de for instance, they even have a store there. Sometimes in offer, otherwise not cheap but reasonable.
 
Top Bottom