Remote Controls
Regular readers of Hifi PiG reviews will be well aware that we recently took delivery of the new EC 5 preamplifier from Electrocompaniet and, whilst the remote control that comes with it is pretty simple, it matches the product, looks nice, feels nice, and does exactly what it needs to do. Nothing particularly revolutionary there, you might think, but it did get me thinking about remote controls and how they are actually a pretty important part of the HiFi set-up, despite being treated as a bit of an afterthought by some companies.
Sometimes it feels as though a brand has spent ages designing a product, and then somewhere towards the end of the process, somebody remembers that people are going to want to control the thing from their sofa and a remote needs to be found. I’m exaggerating a bit, but there are certainly times when I’ve unpacked a beautifully made and pretty spendy bit of HiFi only to find a generic plastic lump of a remote in the box that seems completely at odds with the product it is supposed to control.
Before the emails begin, I’m well aware that making a really nice remote costs money and that, in the end, the cost of everything that goes into the box has to be reflected in the final retail price. However, given the choice between a manufacturer spending another few quid on something that actually makes the product sound better or spending it on the remote, I’m sure most HiFi enthusiasts would choose the former. However, I genuinely think a lot of us would happily pay a small premium for a remote that looks and feels as though it belongs with the bit of HiFi we’ve just bought. Who wants yet another crappy plastic piece ot crap to lose down the side of the sofa? Don’t get me started on those Apple remotes that seemed to be everywhere at one point – I’m saying they were everywhere, but then they had an uncanny ability to be nowhere when you actually needed to find them.
When you think about it, the remote control is arguably the part of the HiFi chain with which most of us have the most direct physical contact. You might switch your amplifier on at the beginning of an evening (I don’t even do this now I’ve got 12V triggers, and turn everything on by the remote), but once you’re sat in your listening chair, it’s the remote you actually pick up time after time. For that simple reason, I think it should feel good in the hand and be something that you actually enjoy using, particularly if you’ve just spent a significant chunk of money on the electronics it’s controlling.
I remember many moons ago getting one of the Devialet amplifiers in for review. I don’t remember the exact model, but I do remember the remote control. It was this beautifully made lump of aluminium dominated by a massive rotating volume control in the middle, and I remember being genuinely very impressed by it. It looked cool, it felt great, and most importantly it worked really well. Did that remote make the amplifier sound any better? Of course it didn’t…But I really liked it, and it has stuck in my mind as a great “innovation” for years.
Now, there’s an argument that the traditional remote control is becoming increasingly redundant. Lots of us stream most of our music these days, and usually there’s a phone or tablet sitting somewhere within reach. I can choose an album, find a track, build a playlist and control all manner of things without ever picking up a remote, and I completely understand the argument that this makes spending a load of money developing another physical controller somewhat unnecessary. However, I still don’t think the physical remote has had its day. For the basic stuff like volume, mute, source selection and balance (where it’s available), I still want a proper remote control. The same goes for a CD player, where play, pause and skipping tracks from the listening chair all make perfect sense, though I’m not entirely sure a remote control for a turntable is all that practical.
Yes, I’m also fully aware that remote controls promote sloth and that most of us, myself included, could probably benefit from the additional few steps involved in getting out of the chair and walking across the room to change the volume. However, when I’m listening to music, the last thing I want to do is get up every five minutes, and I do actually adjust the volume quite a lot when I’m listening. Different albums are mastered at different levels, and even switching between tracks can have you reaching for the volume. One tune wants a smidge more and the next needs a tad less, and I’m not talking about huge changes, just those tiny adjustments that get the listening level exactly where you want it. Without a remote, I’d be up and down like a bride’s nightie, and I’m quite happy to sacrifice those few additional daily steps for the convenience of staying put in my chair. I ought to write more about this in the future, but I do reckon that there is an optimal volume for most tracks based on several criteria: the tune, the way it’s mastered, the genre, your mood, and the time of day.
Anyway, if a manufacturer has put a whole load of time, money and effort into making a product look lovely, then surely the thing we use to control that product should feel like part of the same design. I bang on a fair bit about the tactile side of HiFi (there was once a review site called KnobFeel that reviewed gear based purely on how the knobs felt), and we appreciate a beautifully weighted volume control, a switch that operates with a satisfying clunk, the machining on a front panel and the way the controls have been laid out. Some manufacturers go to extraordinary lengths to make their products not just sound good but feel special to own and use, and so it seems a bit odd when you then pick up the remote, and it’s a lightweight rectangle of generic plastic with dozens of identical little buttons on it. The one for the TV and associated kit is beyond me and has become the domain of Linette – there are just too many buttons and several remotes needed (do they breed?), and I’m far too long in the tooth to spend time learning them, to the point that when Linette had to be away from home for a couple of weeks, I had to phone her to find out how to operate the idiot box.
I digress…
I’m not suggesting every amplifier needs to come with a kilo of CNC-machined aluminium that requires its own flight case (though a remote in its own flight case would certainly be a cool thing to arrive), and there obviously has to be some common sense involved, particularly with more affordable equipment. A good remote doesn’t need to be expensive or extravagant; it just needs to feel as though somebody actually thought about it. Make the buttons obvious, give me the controls I’m actually going to use rather than dozens I won’t, make it comfortable to hold and make the volume buttons easy to find without having to turn the lights on. Make it look as though it belongs to the product it’s controlling, too.
Perhaps this is another consequence of phones becoming the universal remote control for our lives. Manufacturers might reasonably assume that we’ll spend most of our time controlling their products through an app anyway, so why throw a load of money at something that’s going to spend much of its life sitting on the arm of the sofa? I understand that argument, but I still like the physical interaction, and actually I think that’s an increasingly important part of why I enjoy HiFi in the first place. I like records, I like CDs, I like buttons, knobs and switches, and I like putting something on, sitting down and listening to it. I don’t necessarily want every interaction with my HiFi system to involve unlocking my phone and staring at yet another screen; I do enough of that in my daily life, anyway! Sometimes I just want to reach across, pick up the remote and turn the music up a bit, mute it when the phone rings, or knock the level down a smidge because the next track has been mastered louder than the last one. And if I’m going to do that hundreds or perhaps thousands of times over the years, I’d quite like the thing I’m picking up to feel nice and to feel as though it belongs with the rest of the kit.
A remote control isn’t going to make your system sound any better; however, HiFi isn’t only about what comes out of the loudspeakers, is it? It’s also about the experience of owning and interacting with the equipment we’ve chosen to put in our homes, and I reckon the remote control is a bigger part of that experience than it sometimes gets credit for.
Now, where the chuff did I put that remote? Liiiiin!
Stu
