universal remotes

Hi

I have a dodgy remote on my micromega transport. The button '0' and track skip buttons dont work. I miss track skip especially.

I was in Dixons the other day, and saw these universal remotes for £15-£30 .

Anyone got much experience of them? - do you need a more expensive one? any good?

I was thinking of the cheapest matsui one for £15, as I really dont care what it looks like, as long as it works.

thoughts??

Cheers
Chris

 

Richersounds have some nice ones for £29.99. I bought one from B&M for £6.99, it has 6 functions and all it worked for everything, even though I had to pretend my Cassete Deck was a VCR.

Do you know what make your trasnport is or what its based on? Just check that make of CDP is listed. As the hifi end stuff is never listed on the packet.

Argos also sell them but they may not be any better or cheaper than the Dixons one. The Cambridge Audio M1 can be had for £40 now too, which is a very nice remote although probably over your budget.

 

I have a Cambridge Audio M1 and for the money they're hard to beat. However, it learns the codes from your exisiting remotes so if that's goosed then you just end up with a slightly more expensive problem.

Best bet is probably one of the '4-in-1' jobs as the codes are already built in.

If you know the kind of transport the Micromega uses then you should just need to select that specific code (Phillips etc).

 

chris,
when you brought your micromega round to mine, my naim remote worked it ok. it's probably a phillips transport (as in my cd5) and uses the rc5 protocol, which if i understand correctly is a set of standardised infra red and electronic control codes used in multi room installations etc. i'd imagine that any 3rd party remote would work ok.
cheers

julian

 

Thanks everyone.

Julian - I hadnt remembered us doing that - its good to know.

Looks like a cheapy 4 in 1 is the order of the day!

Sounds like a pretty common transport and coding then, should be ok with a cheap one then Im presuming.

Sounds like Richer Sounds another option.... whats B+M??? 6.99?!?!? thats beer money. like it.

Cheers
Chris

 

4 in 1 are pretty good if you lose your codes just give there help desk a ring or email them and they'll send the codes....might be a good place to start.

 

I just bought a "OneforAll" Mosaic remote from Richer Sounds for £50 (see- they DO have their uses )
Anyway, that does everything you could possibly want and you can download codes from their web site or via the phone. Of more interest to you probably; they do cheaper models (from 320 or so) that can also be upgraded. Try their web site for more info.

oneforall.com

Liam. (sorry, don't know how you do those cickable URLs )

 

B&M is one of them discount stores, they are huge and have loads of cheap things like 50p cans larger, 30p bottles of coke, 50p crappy headphones etc. I think they only have about 5 or 6 stores though so the chances of living near one of zil.

 

Hi Liam

I was looking at those on the RS website. Down from nearly £300 to £50?????

I wonder if its an old model or something... £300 seems a helluva whack.

I like the downloadable codes - noticed the 4in1 and 6in1 do that too, which is great, as Im not too fussed about a screen with buttons on, or the extra features


Chris

 

i have a r/c for an old Philips CD711 cd player (1998 vintage) but don't have the player any more. I believe it used a CDM12 mechanism and i'm pretty sure it would work with yours. If u want it, just pm me

 

Micromega did indeed use the crappy phillips 12.4 transport from hell,it was changed to sony for the premium range,so as rory said any phiilips R/C will do.

 

I got a Mosaic at Xmas, when RS started the deal. It replaced 8 remotes, including a very old Linn, ITVdigi box, Proline DVD (which are supposedly problematic). It can learn from existing remotes, and does macros. It's a bit of a brick, but that means the buttons are nice & big. After several months with it I'd recommend it to anyone....but still feel guilty spending that much on a remote..!! Biggest downside is that it buzzes when the backlight is on.

 

i didnt 'like the Mosaic because it couldn't 'learn' so for equipment such as Cyrus, and especially rarer items like my Plinius amp, you are stuck.

There was one4all remote 2 years ago or so which actually 'learnt' from another remote for those with rarer equipment....

 

Not all expensive uni/learning remotes are created equal - my Philips ProntoNeo refused point blank to learn my Pioneer Laserdisc codes - I need to teach it my DVD (Pioneer 656a) ones - if it won't work those, it's going on EBay...

 

Rory as Robs has pointed out and as I can testify the MOSAIC does exactly that; point any remote you have at it and it will learn those remote IR codes. AFAIK it is still OneForAlls current top of the line remote.

liam.

 

Ahem ...

Dom, check out Remote Central for your Pioneer Laserdisk

Rory, there are various RC5 code sets, a Philips remote might not work with a Micromega it just dependes on if the RC5 code sets match.