
@jay you're in the majority here - lot's of users seem to be mystified by this at first. You're reaching the right conclusion, the way I handle it when practicing is to turn off my studio monitors (if they don't have an on/off or their own independent gain, I suppose you'd need to either unplug them or disconnect them from the mixer). Seems a lot of people think this is a miss by Pioneer but it's actually by design and quite clever - I do all of my live mixing with in-ear-monitors so I rely on this configuration quite a bit. You're right, the cue levels for channels 1-4 are pre-fader but what you may not have noticed is that they're post-trim (if that makes sense). Similarly, the master cue is post-trim so that if all faders are at 10, not only do you have the benefit of monitoring your levels visually, you can do it audibly without ever having to lift your cans. This enables you to monitor the levels as they'll be heard through the master out BEFORE you bring in the new track, so you don't have to tweak trims as you're transitioning. Hope that all makes sense. This configuration makes mixing a thousand times more efficient (and fun) for me at least - no having to deal with stage monitors (which sometimes are just awful) or lift my cans on/off, plus beatmatching ends up being way more accurate because you're taking room dynamics/delays out of the equation.