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| Mini User Manuals Explained | DO NOT ASSUME Mini User Manuals are available for all models as they are not. Our primary purpose for making "Mini User Manuals" available is TO BE A SERVICE TO YOU, not to make money. The (mostly) $3-$5 cost is more than the few cents it costs us to print it... BUT, it is little more than costs involved in processing purchases. Frankly, our time could (and probably should) be spent on much more productive activities. It used to bother me when I saw companies with Minimum orders of $10, $25 or more. Now I "fully" understand their position since starting StereoManuals. As long as making these available doesn't cause us excessive problems, we will continue to provide them at minimal prices.
NOTE: We simply DO NOT HAVE TIME to answer questions about the exact content of any particular Mini User Manual. Rather than make us feel like jerks for not answering, please don't ask. The MU Price Codes show the approximate number of printed pages. For more about possible content, see below. | We think many folks would appreciate having access to some basic model specifications, controls and features information rather than no information at all. When we don't have a regular User Manual but there is some useful information in the service manual, then we are making it available separately as a "Mini User Manual." If one buys the service manual, there would be no need to also purchase the Mini User Manual because it is already in the service manual.
Some of these are much more complete than others. Some make quite acceptable substitutes for a regular User Manual. The info included is usually less for units that require less (like a power amp) and more for units that require more (like a receiver). Some might show how to program a remote control. Some have little more than Specs and the names of the controls. We make no guarantee regarding whether it provides the precise information you desire. Other than specs, you may think the info included should be obvious to any idiot. Well, we guarantee that while it maybe didn't help you much, the next person will be very appreciative to have that same info.
Mini User Manuals may be single or double side printed on 8.5" x 11" or 11" x 17" and/or may contain 11" x 17" folded /trimmed pullout pages, stapled or not, with no additional covers or binding. Overall quality is almost always Very Good. Normally, they are folded and mailed in an ordinary business envelope unless being shipped with additional items. |
Possible Mini User Manual content:
Service manuals from most companies do not contain any operating instructions of any kind unless such may be required to properly service the equipment. Occasionally a service manual may contain a complete reprint of the User Manual. If so, it might be a page for page reprint or it might be printed as a side-by-side (reduced), two-pages per page reading in landscape mode. We usually make these available as a whole User Manual, not as a Mini User.
For those service manuals that contain some user-type info, the amount and type of information varies. For very simple equipment like a car amplifier, it may only be a single page or two containing specs and perhaps speaker wiring connection information, which may all the average person "needs". For something like a home theater receiver, it may contain specs, basic control info and perhaps something about a programmable function as with a remote control.
Most commonly they contain the equipment specifications and some abbreviated operating information. Pioneer was pretty good about providing some basic operational information in most of their service manuals at least up through the early 80s. Manuals for some models all the way up through the turn of the century contain it.
Using Pioneer service manuals as an example, many of them included a sort of Mini user manual in the front. The exact user-type content varies a bit from one type of unit to another, but they generally include:
*** Full specifications,
*** A page (often a folded pullout) with a line drawing of the unit as in regular User Manuals,
*** Brief descriptions and/or use of the various controls & features,
*** frequently a system connections diagram.
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