Recent content by Bob Rapoport

I agree with you Todd, residential customers rejected 8K TVs when they found out there would be no content for them. The confusion made consumers angry, wondering if they needed new HDMI v2.1 cables and sources. Dealers rejected v2.1 due to complaints from their customers about being hyped...

Lots of news this month announcing our Essence Forum page on AV NIRVANA, Alta Audio's New Patent, HDMI DACs for 4K Sources and TVs, and Amphion Argon1 Speakers. Essence March 2025 Newsletter

American speaker manufacturer Alta Audio has announced that it received U.S. patent No. 11,917,361 B2 for its XTL Transmission Line technology. “The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office confirmed what we knew all along. XTL is a unique design worthy of this important distinction,” says Michael...

Thanks Sonnie, this show came at the end of a long tour through Europe where they got a lot of practice playing together. Its not easy assembling a band this large with double drummers, double keyboards, and double lead guitarists with 4 back-up singers and having it all come off with ease...

Bryan Ferry Band: Live in Lyon - Blu-ray Review Concert: :5stars: Video: :4stars: Audio: :5stars: Final Score: :5stars: From his earliest recordings with Roxy Music at the beginning of the 1970s, Bryan Ferry has taken his place as one of the most iconic and innovative musicians and...

The quickest path to insight is to see what actual customers think in their own field applications. There are so many variations, its fun to read about what other audiophiles have for systems and how they apply the HDACC II-4K to their needs. I put together a small assortment of the...

After 20 years of evolving HDMI versions, its safe to say that the first thing to know is never be an early adopter of a new version of HDMI. v2.1 was followed by v2.1a and v2.1b, adopting v2.1 when it first appeared lead to early obsolescence. The same happened to v1.3, v1.4, and v2.0, all...

Glad to hear you're a hi res adopter. The improvement from 16 bit to 24 bit is audible even to non-audiophiles, the sound quality is richer, smoother, and fuller, all parameters you cant measure. I've not compared 24 bit to 32 bit yet because there's not much 32 bit content on the market. I...

Normally I would agree with you but this has nothing to do with human audibility. Increasing the dynamic range of all the content we hear so that it matches the original master recording is the goal I describe in this thread, the pursuit of high fidelity. Its clearly audible when you compare a...

Marketing had nothing to do with it, the scientific progress by Sony to extend the storage capacity of their 5" optical disc is what made it possible. It took a long time, from 700 Mb over 74 minutes CD in 1984 to 100 Gb over 3 hours 4K Blu-ray in 2017. If you've never seen UHD 4K or heard...

Just ask yourself about the meaning of the words "High Fidelity". That's what we call our hobby. The pursuit of high fidelity means hearing a one to one copy of the original master recording, with equal bandwidth and the dynamic range of the original recording. There's a reason the Studios...

The original master recording on Blu-ray is the LPCM version, the recording studio standard. Dolby TrueHD and dts Master HD Audio are the optional storage algorithms that apply a small amount of compression to save space on the disc to be devoted to the video. When you select either one, the...

Hi Doug, I owned 5000 vinyl albums and was a co-founder of Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs in 1977 so I know we can get decent bass from vinyl LPs. The bandwidth limitation at 100 Hz is meant to allow more play time, using the RIAA equalization is a handy way to solve the problem of recording time...

Originally posted September 2015. Its holds up pretty well after 10 years. The other day I noticed a posting on one of my favorite Facebook communities, All Things Music, Movies, and Home Theater. A regular contributor posted this Music Resolution Comparison Chart that shows all the various...

I’m a big fan of Blu-ray concerts because they bring me closer to the artists I love, at their craft and sounding better than any other source available today. It's a more emotionally intimate listening and viewing experience, engaging both our sense of sight as well as hearing. The sound of...