Page 1 of Nice little function...

I was just farting about on electronics retailer sites and noticed Aiwa have some products with what`s called "Theatre Mode" or "midnight mode". What it does is you put the volume as loud as you want it to go on loud scenes and it automatically brings the volume UP on quiet scenes....
http://www.aiwa.co.uk/features/visual.html#theatremode

I don`t know if this is featured on any other manufacturers products but I think it`s an excellent idea! I can`t tell you how many times I`ve been watching films late at night with one finger glued to the volume control for fear of waking people nearby! Why aren`t there more products with this feature. (I do remember AVLS that sony had for walkmans etc..but they were to "protect your ears from sudden loudness" when you were listening to a portable device.)

My Philips TV has this feature and it works well.

Failing that, I will listen using headphones with the sound muted on the tv. The only problem is that I sometimes try to adjust the headphone volume using the normal volume control rather than the on-screen headphone control. This then automatically toggles the mute function causing the tv volume to come back on again. As I`m still wearing headphones, I`m not always aware of this for a while. Oops.

Funnily enough when I had my old-skool Harmon Kardon AVI100 Prologic amp, I came home from the pub slightly `merry` and decided to watch a film using the old plug-the-headphones-into-the-amp-and-turn-the-TV-volume-right-down-gag and got really annoyed because I couldn`t hear anything.

I kept cranking the volume up and eventually heard it, tho` it was really muffled - couldn`t work out why.

Then my neighbour`s fist came thru my front door and I realised why - the headphones weren`t plugged in `all the way`...

Most amps these days have some kind of `night listening` mode (eg my Yammy A5) - I reckon hifi manufacturers have gone all family-orientated on us.

Great idea, tho`, especially if you have a neighbour who eats spinach when he gets annoyed...

This item was edited on Friday, 16th March 2001, 23:31