Tip of the Day: Online Owners Manuals

[admin]

Need help with setting up or configuring your new A/V receiver? A lot of manufacturers offer electronic copies of owners manuals, setup addendum's and tips on their websites to help you in case you lost yours or want to do some research. Often in PDF form, they make searching for key words easier than flipping through the manual that came with your new product. Doing a web search (such as Google) will generally find them quickly. Don't stay in the dark. Use these tools to ensure you will get the most out of your new A/V receiver.

Discuss "Tip of the Day: Online Owners Manuals" here. Read the article.

 

[Adam]

Hi, Gene. Thanks for posting this.

My tip was worded and intended to be general to all equipment, but the tip was reworded to be specific to receivers. That's not a criticism, btw, but I'd like to point out that people can find manuals for all sorts of things online these days. I recently looked up the manual for my 14+ year old programmable thermostat.

Also, I have a request that may seem odd. My suggestion was intended to be helpful and point out a resource that people might not be aware, and not as a directive for people to read their manuals and stop being ignorant. The latter is not my mentality towards people, but that's how I interpretted, "Don't stay in the dark. Use these tools...." That's just how I interpretted it, which doesn't mean that's how it should be read. However, I'd feel more comfortable if you removed my name as the source. Thanks.

 

[gene]

Wow I didn't read it like that at all. I needed a couple of more sentences to have a little more content than the intro text on the homepage. I will remove your name as the source.

 

[Adam]

Thanks, Gene. And, I apologize if my post came across like I was offended or that I thought you were calling people ignorant - neither is the case. At 3am, I wasn't very eloquent. It's just that I got a certain impression when I read it, and I thought somebody else might get that impression, so I'd rather not have my name on it. I appreciate it.

Okay, I've polluted this enough with my whining. I'll move on.

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I really like how you added the part about the addendums and tips! That was great. We should write a tip around firmware, too.

I'd also like to point out that I also put up the tip for the regulars here. There are a lot of people that come here looking for help on their new gear, and knowing where to get a copy of their manual makes it easier to walk them through it. Clearly, a number of you already know how to find manuals, but I didn't know how universally known it was.

 

[j_garcia]

One more minor addition to this one, sometimes a manufacturer will allow you to register your gear online. What that opened up for me was all of the literature about the unit that the company had put out as well as any info on firmware updates, recalls, etc... which I found handy a few times.