950 Mute question

This scenerio seems to happen. You watch a great movie and have the volume turned up to -10 or something and shut your system down without turning the volume down. The next time you turn it on it's very load so you hit the mute button real fast. Now the problem, if you try and reduce the volume the sound comes back on blarring. Am I doing something wrong? If not I would suggest the next pre/pro allow you to adjust the volume while the mute is on.


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MeanGene's Home

I have had the same issue. When I turn the unit back on and forget that the volume was very high I get a big surprise. I had a HK receiver that allowed me to program the db level to the same volume everytime I turned it on. This was a very nice feature that the 950 should have or at least add to the next generation pre/pro

DVD's are recorded at a lower level than some other formats (video tapes, CD's) to allow for more headroom. That's the reason that a reasonable to loud listening level on DVD's can be a severely loud listening level on other sources.

If you get into the position of having the 950 turned up too loud for the active source and don't want to unmute it, hit an inactive input button at the top of the remote. That will turn the mute off, but you'll be on an input that isn't playing anything and you can turn it down there.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

To preclude ever being blasted out of the room, or possibly damaging the equipment, I have had a long standing practice of turning the volume down to its lowest point before I turn off any piece of audio equipment. A long while back I had read an article that put forth the theory that if you turned off audio equipment before reducing the volume to its lowest level you risked damaging the equipment because of voltage spikes that would occur when the equipment was shutdown. I don’t know if this is true or not, but this practice has kept me from having to cover my ears while trying to use the remote to turn down the volume.

It would be great if the Outlaws made their next pre/pro with a feature similar to that which Raider described. In the meantime, I have a macro programmed on the power button of my universal remote (not the one that comes with the 950) to hit volume down a few times before sending the power off command.

Any wizards out there that could disassemble the firmware of the 950 and fix those few remaining bugs and add things like auto-volume reset discussed here ?

For that matter, what make chip holds the firmware and is it socketed ?

And yes I'm aware it voids the warranty.

Mike

Is it possible to program a one-button macro function to drop down 5 clicks immediately? I'd love to have that for movies as I don't really like having such wide variances between gunfire and whispers. Seems like it's work here too.

I don't see any reason you couldn't do a macro that sends "volume down" five times.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Other than not having a remote capable of macros.

But the 950's remote is capable of macros. In addition to being able to program a macro onto the power button, there are the four macro buttons at the bottom of the remote that can each hold two macros - one for the top row of device modes (AUD, CD, DVD, and AUX) and another for the bottom row of device modes (SAT, TV, VCR, and CBL).

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

I meant mine actually.

I like most of the suggestions here. You all missed one though - "Get off my lazy b*tt and turn the knob down" - Thanks for being polite. I have an MX500 which has a button I programed to turn down the volume. I also have the main amps in standby mode when starting up, they are also connected through a Panamax Max 5300 which turns everything on asynchronously and that should take care of any spiking.

Let me ask the same question another way.

What is the advantage of not being able to adjust the volume during mute?

I just wanted to make sure this gets addressed for the much anticipated Outlaw 990 Pre/Pro. Well, OK, I came up with the name, but I thought the new power amp is the 790 so, the new Pre/Pro must be a 990, right?
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MeanGene's Home


[This message has been edited by MeanGene (edited June 17, 2004).]

I've been thinking about some other interface behavior lately (while helping a co-worker set up a Rotel 1068), and one reason for the behavior of the mute/volume control on both the 1050 and the 950 comes to mind: intuitiveness. Most users will expect that when you hit the volume up or down buttons, the mute will cut off. Maintaining that behavior may be less desirable once in a while, but it also always retains an expected behavior all the time. If there was going to be a change to the way volume is controlled on future products, it would probably be a user-defined default volume at power up. On the other hand, if they do implement a default power-up volume setting, I'd like to see them go all the way with it and include an option to disable it and mimic the 950's behavior.



Or perhaps the 970, since the 1050's successor is going to be the 1070.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

I wonder if the remotes can come programmed so that when you turn the volume up from mute it will turn mute off, but when you turn it down mute will stay active until you press the mute button again. I think the issue we've been discussing is most likely the largest use for turning the volume down while muted, so just program it that way.

[This message has been edited by JT Clark (edited June 18, 2004).]

When it comes to programming, I'm reminded of a structural engineer's standard answer to "can we do..." questions: "We can do anything, if you are willing to pay for it." In the case of the volume and mute interaction (volume up turns off mute, volume down leaves mute on), the literal cost would probably be pretty insignificant. The cost in users (or, more likely, users' loved ones) asking why the volume control is broken because it doesn't unmute when they turn it down would be more of an issue. That's one design debate that I'd hate to have to be in on. If they do implement a change, probably the one least likely to look like a bug or cause is the default start-up volume level.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

I'd like to see a power button that turns the new 970,990 or whatever they decide to call it "ON" as well as "OFF" Just my .02

Lasher

- They went to discrete on and off comands with the 950 because of complaints about the lack of discrete codes on the 1050 (which had a single power on/off button). I don't know if they'll change back or not.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

What's the complaint on a single on/off button? It takes up less space and there's one less button to memorize where it's at.

Discrete on and off codes are desirable for macros. They make it easier and less likely to cause confusion when creating power on and power off macros. (A single power command can make it possible to for someone to run a "power on" macro when one device is already on and end up with a mess.) As an example, I have two macros that make my wife much happier about the system. One macro turns on everything she needs to watch TV: it turns on the TV, the cable box, sets the 950 to Video3 (which also turns the 950 on), and sets the remote to control the cable box. Another macro turns everything off: sets the TV to DVI (another discrete code, which makes sure the TV is on the right input when it gets turned back on later -- I initially tried including it in the "power on" macro, but the TV takes a few seconds after turning on before it will accept remote inputs), turns the TV off, turns the cable box off, and turns the 950 off. It is possible to do macros like this without discrete on and off codes, but the discrete codes make it a bit more foolproof.

Actually, I think Outlaw was pretty slick to make every input command act as a discrete "on" command. On the down side, the "POWER" button's role as "off" only can throw some people at first, but on the up side you're going to need to hit an input command button anyway.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

When I have the mute button on, I don't hear any sound, I know that I just pushed the mute button, and there is a blinking amber idiot light telling me it is muted. The intuitiveness theory that would suggest that I am not sure whether it is muted or not does not work for me nor do I think that is a valid reason for the current setup. It is clear to me that regardless of the current state of mind of manufactures that think that it is correct to implement the mute button in this way, are simply wrong. They need to change it. It does not make since to have it in the current configuration. There may be a very small minority of users that feel if they press the mute button, that another button will wake up the sound. Normal people would think that they would have to press the same button to activate the sound again. A majority of people would like to be able to adjust the sound during mute for multiple reasons, many of which they probably could not come up with right away, but would certainly demand once pressed into need. Therefore, I would suggest that the mute button - mute, and the volume button - adjust volume, let there be no confusion. They should be used as they are labeled to be used. Period.

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MeanGene's Home

Additional information:

When you press the volume button to un-mute you also increase/decrease the volume by at least 1 db up or down from the setting you originally were listening to, thus making it more difficult and less user friendly.

The only reason that I classify the behavior as "user friendly" is that it mimics the behavior of so many other devices that users are going to be used to. Obviously, the mute button must (and does) act as an on/off toggle for the mute mode. However, if you look at many other devices with a remote volume control and a mute button (TV's, for example), the most common behavior is for a change in volume while muted to cause the mute to disengage. Is there a reason the 950 behaves this way? Yes, to the point that I would have been surprised if it had not behaved this way. Should future pre/pros retain this behavior? Not necessarily, and I would find nothing wrong with future gear separating the mute and volume control functions.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

The pause button on the DVD player remote, for example, you press to pause the movie and then you can press the play button to un-pause it. This makes sense to me because you want to play the movie. I see the logic and agree with it under many circumstances, but the mute - volume control is not one of them. Pressing increase/decrease volume to un-mute the sound is like pressing fast forward to un-pause the video. That's pushing it, but you get my meaning, I hope.

I guess the problem really is the fact that you have no recourse. Something happens that requires you to mute, and until those external reasons no longer exist you cannot un-mute. The option to lower the volume without creating a distraction is not available. Yes, as discussed, there are work a-rounds, but a mute button that mutes and a volume button that volume's (sic) sounds better..

See, if I could adjust the volume while the mute button is on, I could consider that multi-tasking.