SB Touch to Denon Marantz working volume control (WIth Claude Code help)

[Miisamm]

Hi I have dabbled with Claude Code made a fork from your denonavpcontrol, and tried to get SB Touch's Volume control working with My Marantz 70's. "We" mangaged to get it working. And for me that's already amazing. If one of the other 4? people that use a similar setup and want to control volume with the IR remote, Touch or Web interface you I hope I can make somebody happy.

I tried to have Claude describe everything we tried, and looks quite good in the changelog.

If you absolutley hate AI Coding, and don't want this addition, I appologize, and won't bother you again.

Have a nice Day

• Miisamm

link: https://github.com/Miisamm/denonavpcontrol

[SamInPgh]

Thanks for sharing this. When I have time, I will take a look at the changes and see if I can integrate the essential parts of the fix into the main repository. No timetable on it right now though. It would make things easier if I had a SB Touch to test with.

[Miisamm]

Ha yes, that would help a lot I only have the one. I played around a lot, and didn't find any weird behaviour, yet. Also I just have the one Amp to try on, but from all I know the volume control on Denon/Marantz always stays the same. I will install a raspi with an lms client to check if it also works as intended. Take your time. It works for me :). If I find problems, I will update, and add it to the changelog.

[SamInPgh]

I think I misunderstood what problem you (and Claude) were attempting to solve. Let me ask you a question. What AVR Type were you specifying in the player setup menu for the player connected to your Marantz? If it was "Marantz AVR", did you also try "Marantz MODEL M1 or Denon Home Amp" and "Other Single-zone Marantz or Denon Streaming Amp"? The first of these was added exactly because of changes Marantz made to the telnet volume protocol, specifically for the Model M1 (and possibly for the 70s). I would appreciate it if you could reinstall the official plugin and try these options. I think you might find that your problem was actually a misconfiguration issue.

[Miisamm]

Oh, ok I'm perhaps missing something
On the plugin or in sb touch fix volume at 100%? Then enable the plugin with volume control?
The touch's implementation is kind of different from the other squeezeboxes, the volume always sends around a value of 100 on any button press, on ir remote button presses or on the touch UI presses. At that point the amp jumps to the set max volume in the plugin, tried with 60% luckily and music running 😅.
I perhaps also misunderstood something with telnet connection.
From the webui the volume changes function without my fix. I tried a lot before this and could not figure it out. And after every update I retried. Also if I enable volume control in the plugin the 100% lock on sb an webui disappears. I scoured the Internet and found nothing. I am probably an edge case.

[Miisamm]

I rechecked everything, With M1, the Volume goes to fixed 6 on the marantz and don´t bugdes from there on ir presses. That has to do with the wierd denon/marantz 2 digit 3 digit translation of the volume handling it think, 3 on the m1 2&3 on the AVR´s.
The root cause lies in the Touch´s Volume handling. The Volume is Pinned on 100%. not only on the out put but also in software, on a button Press volume up on the remote it sends out 101, on a button press volume down it sends out 99. The original volume handling in the plugin, if I understand it correctly it waits for a + or - from the player, but Touch sends and absolute near 100 value, which falls through and reaches the volume calculation as an absolute value, hence the jump to max value on the marantz. On the M1 setting it jumps to 6, probably an effect of the 2&3 digits handling. Like I said I understand how it works in a nutshell, but are no programmer.

Check the Changelog of the modified plugin, it describes the problem quite well. It is the only solution which works in the sb touch´s. The Problem doesn´t lie in the plugin to Marantz direction, but specifically The SB Touch to plugin direction. It should not change anything for other players, only the SB Touch.

At the moment there is also a limitation, because how the modification handles the Volume from the button presses, the range from 84 to 100 % on the webui slider are caught in the modification which changes changes to steps, and would break the function. I will try to check what happens, and try to find a fix. If the volume limit -20 or -10 is set (on my marantz 70s it will be below 84) The plugin works as intended.

DenonAvpControl-Touch-Volume-Problem.md

[aesculus]

I have a similar environment and perhaps the same issue, but I rarely (never?) use the Touch UI to control the volume. I will take a peek at your version and see if it is the same.

[Miisamm]

@aesculus I updated the repository to make the install easy:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Miisamm/denonavpcontrol/master/repo.xml

All added to the GitHub Page
Also, remember to set the 100% Volume fix, and I had to restart the Touch (power cord)

[aesculus]

I just moved the plugin.pm module over and restarted the server.

I confirmed it does only move .5 at a time with each touch and does not go to full volume on touch.

Now I have to understand how it is doing it so I can make it work with long presses and can be integrated with the core plugin.

[Miisamm]

Oh, Long presses on the touch screen do not work? I did not think of it, for me it was more the remote side. Do long presses work in standard mode? Without the plugin? Long Presses work with the remote, with a speed ramp if held down.

[aesculus]

I'll have to try the other environments. Mostly I use mobile apps and the web to control my Touch, so I have to go hunt down the Logitech devices.

[Miisamm]

I'll try this evening, and if it works original, I'll try to fix it with claude code.

[Miisamm]

Just tried it out, with the Plugin disabled, the touch volume controls always go just 1 step at a time, also with the original sb Touch behaviour. I just had the idea to add an option to select the steps between 0,5dB, 1dB, and 2dB.
The firmware of the Touch only gives one command per touch, also no release information, so holding down for volume up won't work.

[aesculus]

Thanks for testing that. I was pretty sure that was how it worked to. When we built the original plugin for the Denon we changed the algorithm for volume adjustments to be non linear. We wanted bigger steps on the low volume side and tighter steps near the top. Unfortunately the Claude version removed that. NBD as I am looking specifically at the 100% issue, and nothing more.

[Miisamm]

On the other devices it should still be nonlinear, the touch is the only outlier. I can look into it again, but as I said and understood the volume buttons on screen, give the same 101 - 99 values, as the remote.