These guys
https://khozmo.com/index.html do some stunning switched attenuators which start at just over £100. That might sound like a lot, but the construction has ball races on each end of the shaft, and 48 switched positions.
They do a kit for an IR remote control one using relay switching and 64 attenuation steps with a numeric indicator, but that is quite pricey.
Back in the day (1976) I built a preamp when I spent a summer at CERN using their PCB facility to make the boards. I used a switched attenuator, but only 12 way switches were available. So I put another wafer on, and used that to fire a flip flop, that switched in or removed an additional resistor using a relay. So turn to zero and it would switch to the quiet range, turn to zero again and get the loud range. Etcetera. So I synthesized a 24 position attenuator using a 12 position switch.
Craig