I haven't had any trouble with that. Think of it as not having a volume knob at all, just "up" and "down" buttons. Nobody can walk by and turn it all the way up while it's off. It stays at whatever volume it was when you turned it off, so unless you had it really cranked up when you shut it off you don't get blasted when you turn it back on (it doesn't hurt that nearly all of my sources are quiet when first turned on -- CD, VCR, and DVD are quiet until I hit "play" or at least until a menu loads, and the cable box defaults to channel 1, which is a silent and static display).

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Gonk