Oppo 4K Blu-ray players are best on the market
Q. I just purchased a 55-inch LG OLED TV and I love it! I want to get a 4K Blu-ray player now. What do you recommend and will I see much of a difference with 4K Blu-rays compared to regular Blu-rays?
— N.L., Eden Prairie, Minn.
A. Oppo makes the best disc players on the market and are well worth the investment. Oppo players are built like tanks, have class-leading performance, look and feel like quality and are well-supported by the manufacturer. Once you see, hold and use one, you won’t go back to the plastic cheapies. In the past few columns, readers and I have had a discussion about the throwaway nature of the modern electronics and appliance industry. Oppo players are proof that lasting quality still exists!
The Oppo UDP-203 Universal Player is $549 and has my highest recommendation. It plays Blu-ray, 3-D Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray, CDs, SACDs, DVDs, DVD-Audio, and media on USB drives. oppodigital.com
You will definitely see a difference with a 4K Blu-ray disc, but perhaps not in the way you think. You do have extra resolution from 4K, but well-mastered 1080P Blu-ray discs look so good that the extra pixels from 4K are not that big of a deal. Where you will definitely see a difference is from the high dynamic range, or HDR, of 4K Blu-ray discs. The have a better, bigger range of color as well as more graduations of brightness and contrast from light to dark. The difference is not subtle and even an untrained observer will clearly see the difference.
Q. You mentioned in your most recent article that you purchased a Bosch dishwasher with a less than perfect drying cycle. We recently purchased a Bosch model SHX88PW55N and found that the interior was still wet at the end of the drying cycle. The salesman stated that that was normal and, “all of them do that.” We later had a repairman who was in our home for a different appliance but also services dishwashers. He said the salesman’s statement was not true.
Do you have any recommendations to ensure that the contents of the dishwasher are dry at the end of cycle?
— D.J., San Jose, Calif.
A. I do not have a problem with a wet interior with my own Bosch dishwasher. My gripe is that sometimes I will find a bit of water pooled in places, for example in a serving spoon that may have been flipped from face down to face up during the wash. If you have a wet interior your appliance is performing much worse than mine.
A few others have sent emails similar to yours, and I shared this advice which they later said helped them. Bosch dishwashers heat the incoming hot water, which then heats the interior. The combination of heat retained in the interior and heat created by a final hot spray rinse dries the dishes. Knowing it works this way, I bumped up the heat on my hot water heater when the dishwasher was installed and I have never had any drying issues other than the one I discussed.
Another reader wrote to remind me of the “Sanitize” setting that generates extra heat, saying she never had a wet interior after using this setting with her Bosch dishwasher. The Sanitize setting has been active since day one with my dishwasher so I had forgotten about it. So, I am confident that if you bump up your hot water heat and turn on the Sanitize feature you will have a dry interior.
Post a Comment