Universal remote help

[theSHAH]

I have in my room an old Sharp CD-BA250 stereo system and have it hooked up to my much newer LCD TV. The remote control for this stereo system being long lost, I hope to regain control via my Comcast universal remote. Before you all start raging at me to look up the laundry list of codes available online, I already have and these lists either do not include stereo systems at all or only include very limited lists, never mind find a dated system. Can universal remotes tune to any and all devices that originally came with a controller? If so any idea where I could find the code?

 

[Imthatguy]

Ick comcast... I'd go ahead and grab a real universal remote from Best Buy or Wal-Mart before I'd try that.

 

[theSHAH]

I'll look into that, I was considering it my last option to save some $ though lol

 

[Rylot]

I've got a newish (few years old) APEX and I've had no luck with getting it to work with my comcast remote. Granted Apex's are very difficult to code for.

Ick comcast... I'd go ahead and grab a real universal remote from Best Buy or Wal-Mart before I'd try that.

Yeah, pretty much that.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Long story short, it depends.

First of all, stereo systems have a bad habit of having features on them that can only be accessed through the remote, and the standard codes on a universal remote won't be able to access those features.

Second problem, there is a way to make a lot of universal remotes do things they don't have pre-designed codes for, but it requires you to have the original remote to do it. (It basically involves putting the universal remote in "learn" mode and teaching it the appropriate IR pattern.)

Third problem, a lot of cheaper universal remotes skip that function entirely.

Basically, whether or not you're gonna be able to do this is going to depend on how complicated your stereo is. If it's a surround sound system, you're probably SOL unless you spend more money on a fancy remote than you would on a real replacement for the original. If it's a cheap tabletop stereo, you may be able to find something with the appropriate codes built in, but without the original remote, you're not going to be able to program one that doesn't come with the codes.