Palmer Monicon White

The short version of the review is "Buy one".

I wasn't sure if I really needed a monitor controller, after all there are many knobs, both the real and the software ones, at my disposal - on a sound card, there's a computer volume setting, monitor speakers have volume knobs, and then there's the recording software.

But now, after about 4 months later, I'm really glad I bought it.

Nothing beats simplicity of a solid volume button. This way, you can find the sweet volume spot for all the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph and only care about the overall volume without messing with the critical volume balance of the components in your signal chain.

The unit itself is reassuringly heavy, it's built like a tank, rubber studs ensure it will not travel freely across your desktop. Having said that, it's easy to move it around when YOU want it to make space for something else.

The wheel travel is balanced on the heavy side - just enough to allow you to make small and precise volume adjustments. At the same time, it's pleasantly smooth.

Mute and Mono buttons work as advertised, when they're ON (when they mute or switch the sound to mono), they remain depressed so you have a visual control to confirm that you haven't gone deaf :)