The
Rapp Report
JL AUDIO · Patented Tracking Downconverter for bass precisionTHEORY AUDIO · Trinnov pre-voiced optimization profiles includedAUDIOCONTROL · Dante audio routing on select modelsEPSON HOME CINEMA · Higher lumen outputs than comparable DLP — engineered for ambient-light roomsICE CABLE · Dante network audio verifiedHK LUXURY ARTOGL1 (In-Grade/Step) · 1" marker/step/in-grade lightTHEN AUDIO · Dante to analog, made simple — bridge the network audio gapRTI · Integrator Service Program: programming support that saves real labor hoursBARCO · RGB Laser illumination / > 98% DCI-P3 gamutB&W · Continuum midrange cone — the listening session is the reviewCINEMATECH · Handcrafted frames — Italian leather and Alcantara finish optionsSTEWART FILMSCREEN · Handcrafted in Torrance, CA — not manufactured offshoreCERNO · Handcrafted modernism — California-made design lightingTHEN AUDIO · Compatible with AVPro AXION matrix platformCERNO · Lifetime craftsmanship warrantyBARCO · MTBF > 30,000 hours rated light source lifeAVPRO EDGE · Dante audio routing on AXION platformJL AUDIO · Compatible with AudioControl and Trinnov signal pathsJL AUDIO · Patented Tracking Downconverter for bass precisionTHEORY AUDIO · Trinnov pre-voiced optimization profiles includedAUDIOCONTROL · Dante audio routing on select modelsEPSON HOME CINEMA · Higher lumen outputs than comparable DLP — engineered for ambient-light roomsICE CABLE · Dante network audio verifiedHK LUXURY ARTOGL1 (In-Grade/Step) · 1" marker/step/in-grade lightTHEN AUDIO · Dante to analog, made simple — bridge the network audio gapRTI · Integrator Service Program: programming support that saves real labor hoursBARCO · RGB Laser illumination / > 98% DCI-P3 gamutB&W · Continuum midrange cone — the listening session is the reviewCINEMATECH · Handcrafted frames — Italian leather and Alcantara finish optionsSTEWART FILMSCREEN · Handcrafted in Torrance, CA — not manufactured offshoreCERNO · Handcrafted modernism — California-made design lightingTHEN AUDIO · Compatible with AVPro AXION matrix platformCERNO · Lifetime craftsmanship warrantyBARCO · MTBF > 30,000 hours rated light source lifeAVPRO EDGE · Dante audio routing on AXION platformJL AUDIO · Compatible with AudioControl and Trinnov signal paths
Custom Integration · Business Development · AVIXA CTS

Evan Rapp

I've been in this industry long enough to know that I can't simply talk my way into being valuable.

Or pretty.

I'm not gonna stop.

My eyes are the place dreams go to live.

While I like to say that I've worked with the most wildly colorful individuals and souls ever to grace this funkified business, there are admittedly many who might put me solidly among this list. I suppose I can live with either. ;)

I started faxing - FAXING - The Rapp Report as a weekly newsletter to my Klipsch dealers a long time ago. It has always existed because CI dealers need to know they're supported — and benefit from concepts that help them grow, even when they have no time for my long-winded explanations (which I still insist are the Crown Jewels of this industry): you want to know what the products actually do, and why they matter to your business.

Still, everyone knows I like to keep talking long after I've left the room, and this makes good on that. I want my dealers to have what they need and know I'm always the place to find out more — even when I need to do more research myself. I feel better when I bring more to the dance.

My career has covered a crazy lot of ground. Hi-fi and car audio back in the day — out east in Connecticut, NY, and Jersey — I was trying to become decent comic and had so much fun. Still trying. National rep work for Klipsch covering almost the entire East Coast. RSM roles at ClearOne and RTI. VP of Sales and Marketing at Zigen. Time in design and management at Creative Artists Agency that turned out to be some of the best relationship training I never anticipated. Also a lot of voiceover stuff. Life takes you places. I'm still wildly romantic about all of it — because you learn from all of it.

Most recently I ran BD strategy at ByDesign Vision + Sound Marketing, covering Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern, and San Luis Obispo counties and doing everything I could to amplify the work of a crazy, wonderful group of teammates. That's rep life when it's good — a line card of ~25 brands across video, audio, control, infrastructure, and lighting, and a crew that lived every brand, every spec, every win, and every honest failure in real time. Felt like those first days in the business all over again.

I'm an AVIXA CTS, with Dantè and various other certs that have actually helped me to become pretty good at design. I try to know my shit and I try to make the moment enjoyable, even when we're in a firefight. I know most of these products not just from the spec sheet but from the field — the installs, the edge cases, the conversations with integrators at 4pm on a Friday when something's gone sideways. I even like the business for the way we get after it during rough moments.

Outside of work, I live in Ventura with my wonderful and beautiful wife Shelly, who is one of the most genuinely extraordinary humans I've ever met and who keeps me grounded in the ways that matter most. (She's also recently become a successful and inspiring children's author, which I'll have more to say about soon.) I am a crazy rabid Dodgers fan with an intense and failing fantasy baseball franchise, a pretty despotic Lakers fan, and always looking for a friendly argument — because I never know what I might say until it happens.