Well, I guess... about turning the volume to the top... it's a way to exaggerate whatever noise is in the amp or preamp to get a better measurement of it... it's not that you normally turn it up that high (although I'm sure that there are quite a few people that have played music with the 1050 turned to max...) but that if there's no noise at that volume level, you can know that there isn't noise at lower volume levels... but I did play music through the 1050 with the volume nearly at max (70+) just to see how it sounded... I played it that high for a few minutes and did not damage my ears or my furniture... so I don't think it's stupidity... after all, why would your volume knob have a highest setting if you weren't meant to use it?

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net