How to cope with no startup "Bong!"...?

Thanks for replying, Kappy! Apple removed the chime permanently in 2016, as far as I know, so turning up the volume doesn't, unfortunately, work!! People were apparently complaining about the distraction in offices, libraries etc. My problem (and this must be the same for millions of other Mac users!) is finding exactly the right moment to hold down the keys when the screen goes black — do it too early or too late and the Mac ignores them and boots normally! It looks like trial-and-error from now on. At least everything else works 🙂 Ian.

Thanks again, Kappy! I´ve tried out your suggestions and it´s still very much hit-and-miss — which is a shame, it used to be so easy! Today I rang up Apple Support here in Germany, and had an interesting session with a very polite chap whom I granted access (via my iPhone) to my desktop. I was able to show him I was doing things correctly, and he wasn't able to help me apart from saying exactly what you wrote. He did promise to talk to a software engineer colleague and get back to me. We shall see...! 🙂 He was at least able to ascertain that it´s not a hardware problem, because, occasionally, it does work!

Thanks for replying, dialabrain! Yes, quite, shutting down and then holding down whatever key/keys certainly works, but I want to be able to go to Apple Menu > Restart and then get into Recovery Mode, Safe Mode or whatever without shutting down first, as one could do very easily before Apple, in their infinite wisdom, removed the "Bong!". FWIW the Apple guy I talked to today also suggested dong this as well as what Kappy has posted. Looks like I´ll just have to change my ingrained habits...!👿 It´s the only "problem" with my new iMac, I´ll get used to it!