Recent content by Bob Rapoport

Its nice to see an audio veteran like George Samuels still doing great work. He was the founder of the speaker brand EPI (Epicure) in the 1970's, we did some stuff together for Ohm in the 80's, now he's back with Andover and I wish him all the best with his latest project! PI

Click on the cover to watch the trailer Concert: :5stars: Video: :5stars: Audio: :5stars: Final Score: :5stars: The Night the ELO Spaceship Landed at Wembley I came to Jeff Lynne’s ELO: Wembley or Bust the honest way: as someone who remembered these songs in real time. Electric Light...

Your 1080p AVR is not obsolete. It’s ready to evolve. If your AVR has 5.1 or 7.1 analog inputs, the Essence Evolve II-4K HDMI 4K DAC lets you keep the sound system you already love. Feed 4K HDMI video directly to your TV, while converting Hi Res Audio from modern HDMI sources to analog for...

The May Essence Newsletter is live, with a mix of music, HDMI audio education, and a little vintage surround-sound history: Seal — Purpose in native 4K: My latest Blu-ray concert review, celebrating 30 years of classic Seal albums. The LPCM Backbone: A plain-English look at why Dolby TrueHD...

Why You Should Be Listening to the Uncompressed LPCM Soundtracks Editorial by Bob Rapoport, May 2026 Why LPCM is the Standard, and why the surround codecs are the Options. After 50+ years of chasing natural sound — from Pro Logic to discrete 5.1 to HDMI LPCM — I’ve learned one lesson that...

Thanks for your contribution to this thread Todd. This is one of the most common questions I get so I decided to put my thoughts in writing for all to see here and on my site to answer the questions before they come my way. Your comment adds authority to the conclusion that its the best choice...

Concert: :5stars: Video: :5stars: Audio: :5stars: Final Score: :5stars: Mercury Studios, 2026 Some artists have hit songs. Seal has something more rare: a signature voice, emotional depth, and a body of work that still feels elegant and deeply personal decades later. That's what makes Purpose...

Thanks, Sonnie. That means a lot, especially since you’ve lived with all four in the same system. That kind of direct comparison is exactly why I wrote the post. On paper they all have strengths, but in actual use the Apple TV4K keeps striking me as the most refined, most consistent, and most...

Watching Rays / Pirates on Apple TV+ tonight reminds me why this matters — live baseball in 4K can look spectacular when the source is right. And yes — baseball is one of the best demos for 4K. The grass texture, dirt, uniforms, depth of field, and the sheer geometry of the ballpark all benefit...

No Kal. My HDMI DACs do not decode or render Dolby Atmos. They output the program as the uncompressed original LPCM studio version with no post-processing, no steering, and no EQ. Atmos is an object-based format that requires an Atmos-capable processor to interpret the metadata and create the...

Not all AV streamers are created equal. I’ve compared Apple TV4K to Roku Ultra, Amazon Fire TV Cube, and NVIDIA Shield Pro. While each has strengths, Apple...

One of the biggest misunderstandings in modern home audio is where HDMI sources belong in the system. They do not belong in the TV. The TV is the end of the chain. It is the display. It is where the picture is supposed to arrive, not where...

The Essence April Newsletter is now live. This issue brings together the themes that are driving real response for Essence right now: modern HDMI sources, serious stereo, high-performance amplification, enduring loudspeaker quality, and music worth owning on Blu-ray. The early response has...

You will love this show.