Audio Research's New Stereo Preamplifier

[Royville]

Hello to all,

Greetings from the UK, I am a new member just joined today and my name is Roy (as I'm sure you can gather from my user name).

My reason for joining is that I'm in the market for a new pre amplifier and I'm seriously considering making a purchase of an SP20 pre.
I actually have one at the moment on home demo (second-hand) and I have to say that after only two days of listening I'm blown away! - I can honestly say I've never heard anything quite like it before. I love it! I find myself being drawn into the music like never before playing track after track, and then at the end I'll play 'just one more' then after that 'just one more' then after that . . .
In my system it produces a big sound with a good sound stage, and sense of reality I've never heard before. Deep and powerful bass, but so controlled and tuneful. Cymbals so real, like wood tapping on metal and vocals and everything all sounding just right.

I'm convincing myself more and more to make the purchase, - but I just seem to be having one problem, and its not the touch screen, or the slight vagueness of the rotary knobs; Its the remote! Beautifully made and very rugged too, but it doesn’t seem to work very well. Its fine up to about 2ft away but any further and it takes lots of presses and only wants to work directly in front of the unit. I've fitted new batteries but to no avail.
I'm left wondering whether the remote is faulty or is it something in the preamp itself.
This could be a deal breaker for me and I was wondering if any one else has had any similar problems?
Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
Kind regards
Roy.