I find it quite handy to mute/adjust volume than my keyboard's shortcut keys, quite unresponsive at times. As for the EQ its more to adjust the volumes for Center/Front/Rear/Sub only but if you find whichever direction is harder to distinguish then you may adjust it to be louder than the others. As for the adjustable Game/Movie mode, I can't tell the difference between these 2. I can hear very slight difference but I can't tell what it is.