How do I solve the following problem?
I am accustomed to having a great source (Roon), DAC, amp, and headphone right next to the chair that I listen to, so I can immediately adjust such things as volume, song played, amp or DAC used, and the like.
If I transition to a speaker-based system, I have to have way more than arms-length distance from me to the speakers, and the various audio components typically sit between the speakers, right?
So then how do I, from my listening chair, adjust volume....
Use a preamp or DAC-HPamp-Preamp or HPamp-Preamp with a remote control.
Also...rip your files with Replay Gain and neuter the Loudness War Combatants. Think of it like reprogramming a Droog.
There are remote control apps for music servers now. Hell, I use it even when working on my laptop - assuming connectivity isn't bad (like how my Fuji cam has WiFi and a remote app but I can't trigger the shutter using a smartphone, much less see live view on my smartphone, because they don't even connect for some reason) an app on an ARM device like a smartphone is always faster than my 8gb RAM dual core X86 laptop running Spotify and several other things like MS Office and Chrome (it's not even the RAM, stupid Spotify on Windows loads slowly or fails to load album track lists entirely).
AFAIK outside of HT receivers that can do this via remote you're gonna have to do the traumatic, high energy task of standing up to switch the position on a knob on your DAC-HPamp-Preamp unit. Some AudioGDs won't require pulling the headphone out of the socket - you just flip the switch and it routs the signal through its own headphone amp circuit or through the preamp output then skip the amplifier output stage, out the back, then to your speaker power amps. You then use the same volume knob to control it. Mind where the knob is before flipping back and forth.
Kind of traumatic, I know. I've been there. You youngsters are so lucky with remote apps you never knew the horrors of having to stand up, open a jewel case or take a sleeve out, walk over to the gear, hit "eject" on the CDP or MD or lift the arm on the TT then stop the motor, take a bare silver bottom disc or a plastic-encased silver disc or a huge black disc, then slip it back into the jewel case or the sleeve, walk back to the shelf, place the jewel case in or put the sleeve in a plastic bag then back into the shelf, then pull another one out and repeat the whole exhausting process in reverse order and try to make it back to your chair before the music starts pre-remotes or post-working remote. Worst part of it all is we actually listened to the whole album, so people find it weird that my Spotify and FLAC are arranged per album and no custom playlists.
Ummm...why? You'll just complicate the entire set up instead of using a single DAC or DAC-HPamp-Preamp as your source and signal traffic control.
You're supposed to be listening to the music through the set-up, whichever is more convenient; don't use the music to listen to the hardware.
I guess one answer is keep the audio source components within arm's reach and just move the speakers away to a proper and centered listening position... but is there anything that might keep speakers next to the components?
Keep power amp near the speakers even though speaker cable length is of less consequence, put DAC-(HPamp-)Preamp unit near your chair. If you use SPDIF the music server can be practically anywhere and then the question is where the storage media is (ie if you use an HDD server you could hook it up to the music server via LAN cable). Then you can control whether the sound goes ie switch from headphone to the preamp output to feed the power amps close to the speakers. At least you won't have the likely largest and heaviest components near your chair.
