I have a 5.1 sound system.  I often adjust the volumes of the various speaker channels to give me the best sound for a given application - e.g. Netflix streaming, music player, You Tube videos, etc.  It's a pain to continually readjust each channel.  I'd like a way to make a sound setting, back it up, then reapply it when I need it.  I'd like to store several different profiles from which to select.  Can anyone pull this off?

Thanks,
Sarkand

Folk,

Several of you have made excellent theoretical points, and I understand the theories behind them to an extent.  However, none of those points are borne out by my electric bill reduction.  The realities kinda kill the theories in such discussions.  Financially, LEDs have altered my budget.  That is fact, and no theoretical discourse will alter it.

-barney (May 20, 2014, 11:07 PM)

Yep, ain't no doubt about it - LEDs will save energy, whatever the long-term costs in various applications.  That is important.  But we have let this thread go way off topic (mea maxima culpa, Mouser).  Mouser's stated primary motivation was heat reduction, however and wherever it is generated.  The cost of energy saved is gravy to him.  Unfortunately, he is now in the position of re-thinking his original assumptions, as am I.  The fact is that LEDs use less energy, that is important, and I intend to keep using them as the best alternative until something better comes along.  I am willing to pay the freight (still think it's cheaper).

I reiterate:  the heat in an electrical system is generated by resistance.  Wattage, voltage and amperage have nothing to do with it, except in how they influence resistance (push more of any of these into a medium of given resistance and more heat will be generated).  You can throw 10,000 watts at 100,000 volts across a superconducting wire or surface and generate little or no heat - resistance is reduced to near zero in such conditions.  At absolute zero, resistance of a conducting medium is zero, this is a law of physics - I haven't forgotten that much.  The heat is generated by the excitement of atoms unwilling to give up their electrons in order to propagate a current.  If the current is high enough, the wave is propagated - at the expense of the heat generated when the atoms are forced give up their electrons, as they have to be raised to a higher energy level in order to do so. In the trough of the current (wave), the atoms regain their lost electrons from the free electrons surrounding, ready to repeat the cycle at next crest.  At least that is how I understand it.

My question in fact relates to the mechanism by which the heat (resistance) is still generted at such high levels, even in conditions of lower wattage.  I still like my earlier guess of a step-down or AC/DC transformer.  These things produce heat like crazy - to get rid of the extra electrons, I expect.