While a remote is indeed a nice convenience, I would not sacrafice sound quality for it. I auditioned a lot of preamps and the ones I really liked were the ones by Shindo. All come without a remote and I'm okay with my choice. So no, it's not a deal breaker for me. For 2 channel I'm after the absolute best fidelity I can get so the price I have to pay is getting up to flip records and adjust volume. I'm also getting to be an old fart (45+)so getting off my lazy ass as much as possible is probably better for me anyway as well.
Is preamp remote volume a deal breaker for you?
I've been looking for a quality active tube preamp with remote volume control. Most high quality tube preamps that are reasonably priced (ie, under $4000) do not come with remote volume. Those that do use the cheap motorized Alps pot (I've had bad experience with Alps), probably because it's cheap and widely available. I've seen some very expensive preamps us this pot, unfortunately. The two very high quality preamps I've read about are the SAS Labs 11A, Don Allens preamp, and Atma-sphere M3, but the designers refuses to implement remote because they believe the sound will suffer. Atma-sphere uses a huge hand assembled remote volume only for there expensive MP1. A preamp without remote is a deal breaker for me. How about you?