• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

remote volume control

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Milkduds

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Joined 2004
#1
I'm helping my college student son convert a floor standing antique radio into a sound system for his townhouse. The cabinet is just too cool to pass up. The question he has asked me is there any way to have a remote volume control. Does anyone know of any not so expensive ways to pull this off. I have an older chip amp I built that will power the speakers and 5687 diy linestage with an Alps pot on the front of the chip amp to improve the sound. I suppose we could buy a Bluetooth adapter as well. His source will like most college kids be his phone or a laptop.

TIA,
Milkduds
 
#3
I have bought the cheaper version of this board without the LCD display, from another eBay seller. TThe ALPS potentiometer measured 47K on the right channel section and 100k on the left channel section. It actually did not seemed to be a real ALPS potentiometer at all. That's not a surprise, considering the low price. I am planning to replace the fake potentiometer with a good one, but maybe a digital potentiometer is a better solution.
 
#4
Hmm... A college student you say? So, why not an Arduino, an IR receiver, maybe an LCD shield for debugging, a motorized ALPS pot and a universal remote from your favorite supplier? Of course followed by the words "figure it out".

That's how I did it... Educational, entertaining, and surprisingly easy... It only took me a couple of hundred lines of code to finish a complete controller for a preamp (input and volume control, IR remote, OLED display) with the help of available Arduino libraries. And I'm no programmer...
 
#5
Milkduds said:
I'm helping my college student son His source will like most college kids be his phone or a laptop.
Click to expand...


I just finish doing that for my son. Kid these days stream music and don't use old stuff like iTune. 😀 They use the phone for everything. Old IR volume control is not cool. I hook up a Smart home power switch to a tube amp. A Bluetooth receiver to the audio input. This way they can ask Siri, Alaxia, OK Google or what ever to do everything. You can buy the switch and blue tooth receiver from your favorite e-comerce store.
 
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#7
This is what I did.

There are number of Bluetooth receiver you can get, from expensive to cheap. I got one from Amazon for about $60. That one supports CSR 4.2 which support better compression algorithm. With a Bluetooth receiver you can wireless-ly connect a PC, MAC or phone to the tubeamp. You can also use the PC or phone volume control (no need to buy remote volume control). These days kids uses hardware AI device which control music steaming, lights and other new age stuff. Some examples are Amazon dots, Apple home pod, Google home. I connect one of these device (free as part of other purchase) via bluetooth to the bluetooth receiver. To turn the tube amp on-off I got an Blue tooth power switch for about $10. Think of a blue tooth connection as a wireless RCA cable. With all that now you can do the following kid lingo:

Alexia, turn the tube Amp on
Hey Siri , Dim the mood light to blue and play my romantic playlist from Spotify
OK Google, lower the volume and order me a pizza

And when I visit my son, I can always turn the preamp selection switch to LP and put on a record the old way. I just need to remember to turn the amp back to AUX and turn up the volume when I am done 😀
 
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