Patent ID: 8155349

Claim:
A muting control device for controlling an input audio signal to be in a mute mode, the device comprising: volume control section capable of setting an amount of attenuation and controlling a volume level of the input audio signal; a muting circuit capable of switching between an attenuating state and a non-attenuating state, and, in the attenuating state, attenuating the audio signal by a predetermined amount of attenuation which is less than a maximum amount of attenuation; and control section capable of, when controlling the audio signal to be in the mute mode, controlling to set the amount of attenuation by the volume control section to the maximum amount of attenuation, and controlling to cause the muting circuit to switch to the attenuating state, wherein when controlling the audio signal to the mute mode from an unmute mode, first, the muting circuit switches from the non-attenuating state to the attenuating state to cause the muting circuit to attenuate the audio signal by the predetermined amount of attenuation, and then, the amount of attenuation by the volume control section is set to the maximum amount of attenuation to cause the volume control section to attenuate the audio signal by the maximum amount of attenuation.