Kent Poon's Audiophile Jazz Prologue III

Some Computer Audiophile readers have been familiar with Kent Poon of Design w Sound for quite a while. To be honest I had heard of him and had browsed his website here and there, but I didn't really understand what he did or what his site was all about. If I had done a little research at the time I would have realized Kent Poon is a is a highly esteemed producer and mastering engineer. Kent is at the top of the industry in Asia and has a very impressive resume. In fact he is one of the youngest full members of the Audio Engineering Society (AES). I met Kent this year at CES and I've been extremely impressed with him and his work ever since. I am very pleased to introduce the rest of the Computer Audiophile readers to Kent Poon and his latest piece of work Audiophile Jazz Prologue III. 

Attention To Detail

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year I met Kent Poon in the Weiss Engineering suite at the Venetian. Talking to Kent you would never know that his work is so highly regarded. After our conversation he handed me the two disc limited edition package of Audiophile Jazz Prologue III. Kent is so humble that I felt somewhat like a hot shot record producer being handed a demo tape from a starving artist. He asked me to listen to the album and get back to him with my opinion. There were no suggestions of specific tracks to listen to and there was no talk about sound quality. Looking back on the conversation I now think Kent was well aware of his masterpiece and had no need to oversell it to me.

When I arrived back at my hotel room after hours of walking the halls of the Venetian I opened the Audiophile Jazz Prologue III Limited Edition package. To my amazement every "i" had been dotted and every "t" had been crossed. The packaging itself is a work of art. The liner notes are substantial with fabulous photography. The external DVD jacket is made of very fine quality. Even the logos are colorful and very detailed. Everything about this package exudes quality. Note: The included PDF version of the liner notes is of equally high resolution and contains identical content. The Limited Edition version contains one CD-R and one dual layer DVD (not DVD-R). The CD-R is not just any off-the-shelf CD-R. Kent did a great deal of research to find the best quality CD-R discs with the lowest error rate available. As expected the 16 bit / 44.1 kHz CD-R version is playable in every Compact Disc player. The individually hand numbered CD-R disc even has a matching PlexTools graph that displays the measurements of the exact CD-R in the package. At the bottom of this test results card is the computer file name of the actual test conducted. This file name matches the serial number of the CD-R. In my case the CD-R is number 1184 and the corresponding PlexTools disc measurement graph was saved as number 1184. The usefulness of this specific information will be different for every person. One thing is certain, it's quite evident that each of these packages was created with care and magnificent attention to detail. The DVD disc contains both 24/96 AIFF and 24/192 AIFF versions of the Audiophile Jazz Prologue III album. This allows listeners to compare all three versions of the same material.

Without knowledge of the recording and mastering process of this album I initially found it somewhat odd that the sample rates available are in both the 44.1 kHz family and the 96 kHz family. I sent Kent an email asking for details surrounding the album's production. He was happy to answer, assuring me that his masters are in 24/96 and 24/192 and the 16/44.1 version is converted using Weiss Engineering's Saracon software. Saracon is highly regarded in the recording industry for its conversion ability. It's my opinion if conversion must be done it's better to go down from 24/192 than it is to go up from 16/44.1.

Music and Sound Quality

My disc-less MacBook Air was the only computer I brought to CES this year. Thus I couldn't even listen to Kent's album until I arrived home after the show. Granted another laptop with a disc drive wouldn't have allowed me to listen under audiophile conditions, but I would've at least been able to evaluate the musical content. By the time I arrived back in Minneapolis to -20 degree Fahrenheit temperatures I was a little less excited to listen to the album. I thought this was probably going to be another well recorded, well mastered, and well packaged "audiophile" album with substandard musical content. I leisurely imported all three versions of the album into iTunes as AIFF files. In total I have about 8GB less free space on my NAS drive after the lengthy import process. To my pleasant surprise I thoroughly enjoyed the music on the album after the first listening session. In the days since I arrived home from CES I've listened to this album countless times in high resolution from my music server and in standard resolution from my iPod and in my car. This is an awesome acoustic jazz album that every audiophile and jazz aficionado must own. One of my favorite instruments is the double bass. I really enjoy hearing the strings pluck on a great recording. Peter Scherr's double bass Audiophile Jazz Prologue III is absolutely wonderful. The rest of the band, including vocals by Marcia Seebaran, are equally impressive. Every track offers something a little different but the sound quality remains unchanged. From start to finish there is never a sense of that "audiophile sterility" present on so many great sounding recordings. Every time I listen to Audiophile Jazz Prologue III I want to listen to the whole album. So often we prefer to skip around from album to album listening to that one terrific track or even part of a track like the drum solo in Patricia Barber's song Company. I don't know how many times I've heard just that solo demo'd at shows or in showrooms. I'd love to recommend a couple tracks as the "best" but I would be doing everyone a disservice. This whole album must be heard in its cohesive entirety.

If your still a little unsure about purchasing Kent Poon's Audiophile Jazz Prologue III, you can listen to some free high resolution samples downloadable from Kent's website.

Samples available include:
PCM Wordlength: 24Bit
Sample Rate: 96kHz (200.5MB) /192kHz (300.7MB)
DXD: 384kHz (601.4MB)
DSD**: 1Bit/2.82Mhz (184.2MB)

Wrap Up

Kent Poon's Audiophile Jazz Prologue III is easily my favorite album of the last twelve months. I don't have one negative comment about the music or the sound quality. Audiophile Jazz Prologue III is clearly a CASH List album that I encourage every one to purchase or a least download and listen to a free sample. If you appreciate quality and attention to detail you'll appreciate Audiophile Jazz Prologue III. If you're on the lookout for great recordings that sound fabulous you'll want to keep an eye on Kent Poon. He's a hit in Asia and I suspect the U.S. market will soon understand why. Now when I think of Kent I can't help but compare his work to releases by First Impressions Music. I certainly don't want to put any undue pressure on Kent, but in my opinion he may be a young Winston Ma in the making.

More details about Audiophile Jazz Prologue III and purchasing information can be found on Kent's blog.