I’m talking about the beep every time you press a button when you’re setting the clock, not during play. As far as I know there’s no way that beep can be turned off.
I’d like to offer my opinion as a tournament director. (I play as well, but most of my activity is as a TD.)
My own first digital clock was an Excalibur (the later model). I have since upgraded to a Chronos with touch pad buttons (the “full length” original version, not the Chronos GX). I had previously borrowed a Chronos in order to learn how to set it competently. Unless you own one or have had a chance to practice with a borrowed clock and manual, let’s just say it isn’t intuitive. However, after a little practice, I was more or less able to set the clock in my sleep (which, as a TD, is sometimes how I set clocks!).
I prefer the touch pad version of the Chronos because of young players who are “serial button pressers.” I have personally seen junior players who have the incredibly annoying habit of pressing the button on the original Chronos (the “clicky” button) as many as five times in rapid succession. That’s too bad, because I do like the tactile feedback of the original Chronos buttons, but I just can’t stand the serial pressers.
If I were designing my dream clock, I would try to find a combination of the reliability and rugged design of the Chronos and the display of the Excalibur. Again, as a TD, I think the display of a properly configured Excalibur is the best of any digital clock I have seen. (Here, “properly configured” means the clock has been set to display seconds at all times, not just when the time remaining drops below ten minutes. Since it is not possible to set multiple time controls on the Excalibur without using the move counter, I also like to have the move counter displayed, but that doesn’t bother me quite as much as a TD.)
I especially like the Excalibur display (with seconds displayed) because I can see at a glance how the clock is configured. That is, I can easily see whether delay is enabled (there is a large single digit in the bottom center to show the delay countdown), whether increment is enabled (the single digit is replaced with an “F”), and whether the clock is running correctly (there is a triangle indicator to show which side is running, and with the seconds displayed, I can easily verify the clock is counting down time.)
With many clocks, it is not possible to tell whether delay is enabled until one stops one side of the clock and starts the other. For example, on the Chronos, using the DL-SD modes (“sudden death with delay”), one has to look for flashing colons. Again, it makes the TD’s job just a little bit harder if one can not tell at a glance what the clock is doing.
One of my pet peeves as both TD and player is clocks that do not show hours, minutes, and seconds. For instance, I think the DGT North American is actually a nice clock for the money. (I like the feel of the rocker arm. It’s smooth and solid, with a satisfying feel.) But, it drives me batty that it shows hours and minutes only until the time drops below twenty minutes, at which time it switches to minutes and seconds. At least that clock indicates on the display which it is showing. I believe earlier DGT clocks would show a colon between hours and minutes but a dot (period) between minutes and seconds.
I found clocks that only show hours and minutes to be especially annoying with Bronstein mode (where time is added back at the end of the move). It’s just impossible to determine whether the clock is in delay mode, Bronstein mode, or neither unless one has the magic decoder ring to interpret the display.
I had an opportunity during a recent tournament I directed to experiment with Saitek clocks, both the Saitek Competition (the blue clock) and the Saitek Competition Pro. Now that I’ve had that opportunity, I’ll disagree with Mr. Messenger regarding the difficulty of setting the clock. But, again, that’s because I had the chance to spend some quality time with the clock and could add it to the list of clocks I know how to set.
The Saitek is a little funky in how it handles a player running out of time in a primary time control. As soon as a player uses up all the time in the primary control, the clock adds the time for the secondary control and lights a “secondary” indicator in the display. (There are “primary”, “secondary”, and “tertiary” indicators to show which control the clock is using.) If the clock’s move counter shows that not enough moves have been made for the primary control, the display also flashes (I think). There was an incident at the tournament when the clock did this. The time control was 40/90 SD/45. Black ran out of time on the 40th move, and white had 8 minutes and something left. The clock had been displaying minutes and seconds. When the clock added the secondary time, the display switched back to hours and minutes, so white saw “00:53” and black saw “00:45”. White complained that the clock was defective because it now said white had 53 seconds and black had 45 seconds. (Black settled the claim by conceding he had run out of time.)
Sorry for the length of this post; I hope there is some useful information here to justify it.
Yes, you’re right. I do mean the information that is displayed. I agree that the original Chronos has a display that is easy to read from quite a distance (even with my suboptimal eyesight).
Very true.
After you’ve set the time controls (primary, secondary, sudden death), keep going. I think it’s after you set “delay all” to be on, but I’m doing this from memory. Anyway, the menu will read “seconds”, and you want “on”. The seconds then appear as smaller digits elevated with respect to the minutes.
As you know, I share that opinion strongly! Unfortunately, a number of clocks seem to require a move counter (Excalibur and Saitek come immediately to mind).
In truth, I haven’t run across a case where this caused confusion. (I guess players may think the move counter matches the number on the score sheet line where they are currently writing!) On the other hand, I have seen Excalibur clocks where the players did not adjust the “first” indicator for White. In that case, the clock is off by a half-move, so the time for the next time control is added when White completes the last move of the current control.
Not sure how to take that “oh goody!” 
But, sure, I’m willing to do that.
Apology in advance: I don’t do the color-changing thing; it obfuscates the attributions. Nesting quotes is not that hard.
Imagine you’re in Microsoft Word. There’s a menu bar across the top. Imagine that, instead of using a mouse, you have to navigate from side to side using the left and right arrow keys. Once you get in the column you want to be in, you then use the down arrow to move through the various options until you reach the one you want. If you decide you’re in the wrong column, you go back up to the top, then left or right again.
That’s how you get into the different modes on the Saitek. Not so hard, is it?
The only catch is that, unlike on a chessboard, it’s the columns that are numbered and the rows that are lettered.
On the assumption that both players are right-handed, and thus that the player with black will want the clock on his right (an assumption I always question and correct if need be), I always push down the left-hand button on my Saitek clock and then reset it, so that it’s always ready for black to press the right-hand button and start white’s clock running. I think this would probably be a good practice to follow with any clock that uses plunger buttons or a rocker switch (i.e., pretty much any clock but the Chronos).
More to the point, if not enough moves have been made, the player loses on time, and his light changes from green to red – a good argument for using the “light but no sound” setting on the power switch. (I’m not aware of any good reason for using the “light and sound” setting.)
Which clock is it that replaces the time remaining display with the delay time display, and once the delay is done it puts back the time remaining display? That can be a bit irritating to a TD that is trying to check on potential time trouble games. It can also be irrititating to a player when one player is under ten seconds and the difference appears minimal between the delay counting off and the final seconds counting off.
Those are the Saiteks.
Sometimes the arrow keys let me select the mode I want and sometimes they don’t. It seems to depend on what state the clock is in (edit mode vs. non-edit mode, maybe?).
What I especially hate about Saitek clocks is when the display is blinking and I can’t get it to stop. Even turning off the clock and turning it back on doesn’t help; it just comes back in the same state that it was in before.
Well, yeah – while you’re in edit mode, you can only edit, not navigate. When you’re not in edit mode, sometimes you can jump from the middle of one column to the top of the next by hitting the left or right cursor button, but sometimes you need to go back up to the top first. Here’s how you can tell: Just try it. If you successfully move over, hooray, throw a party, pat yourself on the back. If you don’t, then hit the up button until the mode says “–”. Then you can move to another column.
I won’t claim that this is the best design, but I adapted pretty quickly.
Playing around with my own clock, it looks like the ones you can’t navigate sideways out of are the 3’s and the 7’s. Which makes some sense, actually, since these are the only ones that have (3A–G) or might potentially have (7A–C) secondary and tertiary time controls rather than just the primary. In these, the left and right arrows, rather than take you to another column, scroll through the stages of the time control.
Hold down the pause button for three seconds, and the clock will reset.
Growing up as a high school player and then for many years after that I used the Excaliber mushroom plunger clock. I still have it from the time I purchased it but over time I’ve experimented with numerous clocks. Now it’s just used as an example clock with some others during arbiter training sessions when we have to discuss the different types of clocks.
The Saiteks are horrid clocks which I hate with a passion. I’m not sure who designed it from a functionality and user testing perspective but they shouldn’t be doing it anymore.
I’ve never been a Chronos fan personally and from what I understand it’s an acquired liking.
While it’s subjective for me to say (since I sell a bunch of them) that the DGT North American is by far my most favorite clock from ease of use, weight, and screen size. Not to mention only 2AA batteries which reduces the weight and the plunger is significantly quieter than the Excaliber especially when it comes to blitzing.
Now when I say easy of use, I’m talking not only from the perspective of a player but that of an organizer/arbiter since we get bombarded with clock questions. Of course each player is responsible for knowing how to set their own clocks, but the DGT NA programming feature is intuitive enough to catch on quickly. Of course I also believe that organizers should provide all equipment for their events but that’s a different story.
I believe that its the age of the Excalibur that matters here. There are at least 2 different versions, with no obvious differences (Maybe ‘Game Time’ vs. ‘Game Time II’, and posssibly silver vs. black buttons) but all of them can have the ‘seconds’ set to either ON or OFF. Its the older ones that can only show the seconds at all when below a certain time (20 or 10 min), while the newer models have the extra little seconds display above the main minute counter.
I don’t know when they stopped making the older version, but it was mentioned before I bought my Excaliber II, and that was at least 4 years ago. It would be a fluke for someone to order the Game Time Excaliber II and get the older version after so long.
I bought my Excalibur clock (used) on eBay in either February or March 2005, and it was the newer model. That was 5 1/2 years ago.
Yes, this is a “plus” for the Saitek. It just starts counting moves without having to be told which side is white. The Excalibur needs an explicit setting for which side is white.
Ah, but this was a Saitek Competition Pro (no green/red light in the plunger).
The good reason for using the “light and sound” setting is that you want to spend some quality time with the TD explaining to you that the sound is disruptive and you should not use the “light and sound” option. 
My clock is a Saitek Competition Pro, and it has the green/red lights in the plungers. Have you been using a much older version or something?
Sevan Muradian and I cordially disagree on a number of things, and the Saitek vs. DGT question seems to be another of them. I think the DGT North American is an ugly, ugly design, with not enough vertical travel in the rocker switch, and I prefer a clock with some mass. (I suppose a TD who has to carry whole boxes of them to his events would prefer a lighter clock, but I’ve got just the one, and I like it to stay put.) As for the Saitek’s functionality, I hadn’t had mine for a month before I was able to set it any way I needed to in under 30 seconds, so I don’t understand what his beef with it is. Maybe it’s the display he particularly dislikes. That’s the complaint I hear most often about the Saitek line.
BTW, I want to second wilecoyote’s irritation with the kids who feel the need to smack the Chronos buttons half a dozen times each time they make a move. I think it’s entirely appropriate to warn the kid the first time he does it that the second time he does it, you’ll be lodging a 20G claim with the TD. Then again, this is part of why I also prefer clocks with plunger buttons instead of spring-loaded ones. (I’ll be honest: Mostly I just like the mechanical shunk feel.)
That sounds like useful information. Thanks.
I find the Saitek clocks incredibly difficult and unintuitive. The manual is pretty much useless. Very limited number of preset time controls. I have pretty much given up on mine.
I’ll take it if you don’t want it.