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 with regular Blu-rays?
A: Oppo makes the best disc players on the market, and, while they are pricey, they're well worth the investment. Oppo players are durable, have class-leading performance and are well supported by the manufacturer. Despite the throwaway nature of so much of modern electronics, 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 see the difference is from the high dynamic range, or HDR, of 4K Blu-ray Discs. They have a better, bigger range of color, as well as more gradations of brightness and contrast from light to dark. The difference is quite bold; even an untrained observer will notice it.
Soggy bottom blues
Q: You mentioned that you purchased a Bosch dishwasher with a less-than-perfect drying cycle. We recently purchased a Bosch dishwasher and found that the interior was still wet at the end of the drying cycle. The salesman said that was normal, that "all of them do that." We later mentioned it to 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?
A: My dishwasher doesn't have a problem with a wet interior. My gripe is that sometimes I 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.
A few other readers have sent e-mails similar to yours, and I shared this advice, which they later said helped them. Bosch dishwashers heat the incoming hot water beyond how it comes out of your water heater. That water 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 water heater, 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 dishwasher. The Sanitize setting has been active since Day 1 with my dishwasher, so I had forgotten about it. I am confident that if you bump up your hot water heat and turn on the Sanitize feature, you will have a dry interior.
Send questions to Don Lindich at donlindich@gmail.com. Get recommendations and read past columns at soundadvicenews.com.
