Hi there,

I bet this has been brought up before...

After performing any Room 2 operations, the front panel of the 990 displays something like
[R2]AUX
or
[R2]Vol -38 dB
or similar.

During the time that [R2] is displayed, if an attempt is made to adjust the "main" volume, it will adjust the R2 volume. It will continue to do this until you wait the alloted time (about 5 seconds) for the R2 indication to go away (the R2 indication on the main LED display, not the little red R2 indicator that's on all the time when Room 2 is active).

Is there any workaround for this, and/or does Outlaw already have this on the list of things to fix? To me, this is a simple firmware bug.

I hadn't heard about this before - it does sound like a bug, though. Could be a simple firmware fix to make sure the main zone volume controls control the main zone even when the R2 display is active.

Steve said it's supposed to work that way, as you can control R2 from the OSD. The volume knob itself will also control R2's volume when [R2] is displayed.

I don't agree with this implementation, but that's the way it was designed. I feel that yeah, you can control R2 from the OSD, but it's not necessary to move R2 volume control to the main volume controls at the same time. Either control R2 from the OSD or the R2 remote, but leave "main" control to the knob and the main remote.

I see what they're doing - they want you to be able to use the front panel in a user-friendly way, and when the "R2" volume is on the screen you will tend to grab the volume knob to adjust it. And since the volume knob and the main remote's volume control are inherently linked, the main remote works this way too. One could even argue that if you are using the R2 remote to operate the second zone you are not likely to even be holding the main remote.

I supposed you could look at it thay way. Or you could say that there are four discrete buttons. Vol+, Vol-, R2Vol+, R2Vol-, and that they should work as such in all cases. Even my wife notices that it's a hassle.

Sometimes I stand in between my two rooms (main and R2), and try to adjust volumes to be relatively the same. I don't care for the delay before I can adjust the main room after adjusting R2.

The "four discrete button" approach is a good one, but the fact that two of them are associated with a separate control that's being intentially appropriated (with good intentions) by the other two does put a heck of a wrinkle in the issue. User interface design decisions invariably produce compromises of some sort - and just as invariably, that fact of life offers little comfort when you end up on the wrong side of one of those design decisions.

I haven't tried this (rarely use the second zone of my 990), but I wonder if there's a command that would serve to "cancel" the second zone's control over the front panel display prior to the five second time-out? I can't think of such a command (maybe hitting the 990's MENU button twice?) but it might reduce the hassle factor for your situation...

gonk,

You're right! Engineering is all about tradeoffs, and I just happen to not like this one... That's OK. It's not the *most* important feature out there!

I run macros through my Harmony 890, such that main and R2 switch at the same time when a different input is selected. I've tried to select R2 and *then* the main room (thinking that the main room selection would kick it out of R2 mode), and that didn't work. I tried the double-menu thing you suggested; no change.

So, I guess I'm gonna live with it the way it is! Thanks for your comments.