Passive volume control

[lpv]

Passive volume control with remote handset - does something like that exist?

 

[davedotco]

Yes.

 

[lpv]

Good. Have you got some more details? Can you share them please?

 

[davedotco]

I just googled.

Icon audio, Pro-Ject make new product, the little Creek can be found used.

Without digging very deep at all.

 

[lpv]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

 

[Vladimir]

Gazzilion of them on ebay.

 

[davedotco]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

 

[lpv]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

.. fair enough, but the trouble is Icon Audio ask £400 for the model without remote. The one with remote is only £50 more.

 

[davedotco]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

.. fair enough, but the trouble is Icon Audio ask £400 for the model without remote. The one with remote is only £50 more.

I'm not defending Icon, but given the standards to which the hi-fi industry operates, these are probably 'reasonable prices' for what are, these days, very low volume product.

Just to expand, the principal costs in such a product is going to be Power Supply and case work, the rest is margin, taxes and the cost of doing busines. The last one is the killer, costs are barely affected by volume, small volume product is always going to be disproportionately expensive.

 

[CJSF]

. . . fair enough, but the trouble is Icon Audio ask £400 for the model without remote. The one with remote is only £50 more.

Such reactions make me very cross, having been in the hifi manufacturing industry in the 80's and 90's. True there are some ripoffs, the classics most of us know about?

Eventualy I said, "OK, go do your own thing" . . . eversince the industry INMHO has 'tryed to play catch up' . . . 'deserve what you get' is a phrase that comes to mind . . . ?

 

[Al ears]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

Agree, the introduction of a powered pot would complicate matters no end in the 'noise' department.

Sometimes not getting off your bum is going to cost you.... *biggrin*

 

[andyjm]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

You explain it well. The guts of a 'passive preamp' is a twin gang potentiometer, yours for under £3 and maybe a couple of 47K resistors at 25p each. The sockets on the back will cost more than this, and the fancy ally box many times more than this. With the costs of putting a small run together, I doubt the manufacturer is going to retire on the profits of selling this item.

Agian, this illustrates why small volume manufacturers in the hifi biz will disappear.

To be honest, it is not so much that this box is expensive, it is that high volume consumer electronics are unbelievably cheap. Back when doing my degree, we plotted a graph of the price of a transistor over time. In the early 80s, we marvelled that a chip could have more than 10,000 transitors on it, and that each transistor cost less than 0.1p Modern CPUs have over a billion transistors in them. The transistors are effectively free.

 

[davedotco]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

You explain it well. The guts of a 'passive preamp' is a twin gang potentiometer, yours for under £3 and maybe a couple of 47K resistors at 25p each. The sockets on the back will cost more than this, and the fancy ally box many times more than this. With the costs of putting a small run together, I doubt the manufacturer is going to retire on the profits of selling this item.

Agian, this illustrates why small volume manufacturers in the hifi biz will disappear.

To be honest, it is not so much that this box is expensive, it is that high volume consumer electronics are unbelievably cheap. Back when doing my degree, we plotted a graph of the price of a transistor over time. In the early 80s, we marvelled that a chip could have more than 10,000 transitors on it, and that each transistor cost less than 0.1p Modern CPUs have over a billion transistors in them. The transistors are effectively free.

This is interesting phrasing.

When I first got into hi-fi, a very long time ago, the industry was tiny and served a small band of enthusiasts through back street shops. Kits and other diy projects were a big part of this and the consumer was very hands on, a different kind of enthusiast.

The customers for 'consumer electronics' bought Dansettes and radiograms and had no idea that hi-fi even existed. The more discerning buyers looked for a radiogram with 'a nice tone'.

I feel that we have now almost turned full circle, the modern equivilent of the radiogram is now the hi-fi mass market, there is little pretense that this equipment is any kind of accurate high fidelity equipment, it just has a nice tone, just like the radiograms of the bast.

There is of course a 'real' hi-fi market out there, but it is small and getting smaller, i'm not really talking about hi-end bling, but decent, reasonably affordable product for the genuine enthusiast. There is of course some crossover but the 'good stuff' is increasing hard to find, try getting to hear a Creek 50a, a Croft integrated or an Exposure 2010, for many this is a serious operation despite the product being three of the best sub £1000 amplifiers available.

 

[margetti]

Agree, the introduction of a powered pot would complicate matters no end in the 'noise' department.

Sometimes not getting off your bum is going to cost you.... *biggrin*

I was reading a thread on audiocircle just the other day whereby someone asked why the Sonneteer Alabaster does not come with a remote control, to which the owner/designer replied quite insightfully:

"The Campion and Alabaster were orginally designed as plain and simple amplifiers with just a volume potentiometer as pre-amp.... We did try to add a motorised volume control but it sounded awful. The only was was to have another power supply. This would however change the design considerably and take away a lot of the quality the amplifier has... Our decision was to leave it alone..

After thoughts can sometimes be detrimental unfortunately. This doesn't mean it is impossible, it would just be quite a lot to get it right."

 

[Overdose]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

A DIYer can buy complete remote controlled preamp modules for less than £30 retail, add another £30 or so for connectors, sundries, a case and 'wall wart' power supply and you have all the components needed. This is retail rice too. Factor in a bulk buy and trade prices for a manufacturer of small runs alone and the prices are going to be 40% less.

A complete passive preamp with remote, really is not to be too expensive to create.

 

[davedotco]

Thank you. Wow..£400 for a box with cable and volume knob? Rip off Icon Audio.. same thing can have for £10 - £20.

Not Quite.

A fairly decent 'pot in a box' can be had quite cheaply, but the real cost is first casework, to make a 'presentable' product and if you want remote control you need either a motorised pot or a digital display (of volume) and crucially a power supply.

The moment you introduce a power supply, costs go up massively, for all kinds of reasons. This is the killer and you have to have power for a remote control device.

Your reaction explains why such components are relatively rare.

A DIYer can buy complete remote controlled preamp modules for less than £30 retail, add another £30 or so for connectors, sundries, a case and 'wall wart' power supply and you have all the components needed. This is retail rice too. Factor in a bulk buy and trade prices for a manufacturer of small runs alone and the prices are going to be 40% less.

A complete passive preamp with remote, really is not to be too expensive to create.

I agree that it is perfectly possible and I suspect that if you hunt around you might find such devices. The question for a manufacturer, particularly a small volume one is why bother.

Custom built casework is not cheap, even if you use off the shelf boxes you need a custom front panal for branding and other purposes. Once you involve mains power you hit CE regulation and combine this with the cost of doing business in the uk and the final retail is rather more than you might think.

You are still going to get people think it is overpriced though, might as well 'bling it up' and charge what you can.