This seems to solve the above issues with the volume.

Put this into your empeg_ircodes file. Some IR codes are disabled, others are remapped to the CD button. When the CD button is hit during playback, nothing happens except that the little play indicator triangle lights up.

#
0x0000B914:0x0000B91E
0x0000B915:0x0000B91E
0x0000B91D:100
47379:100
-2147436268:100
-2147436267:0x0000B91E