reading through the thread and this seems like a great phono, but has anyone compared this to the lounge silver wire? im a little apprehensive about adding anything digital into the analog path but man this sucker checks a lot of boxes especially all the gain options.
Puffin arrived today now to play with it, the settings seem a bit overwhelming Immediate reaction is I see some improvement in problem records but not lightyears I assume it needs some break in and find tuning
sadly i havent had a ton of time to play the past month, and i'm also breaking in a yamaha as501 simultaneously so i don't feel its fair to assess judgement on either just yet. initial impression is its nice piece of equipment for a tweaker but i'm not blown away, again i'm trying to reserve judgement until i get more hours under it and my amp especially since the yamaha really needs a long breakin. i seem to have settled the tuning in at about a +2 air and a +2 tilt which balances some of the brightness from overly bright albums but doesnt take too much away from the non bright ones. anyone know the capacitance rating of the puffin?
Too many tweaks, too complex. Pre should be simple component you forget you have. The original Parks Budgie was perfect for the price. I sold mind for what I paid for it and bought me a Decware ZP3 all tube, no solid state parts, phono pre. It is twice the price as Park's Puffin, but I'll never need anything else. If I feel the need to mess with sound I can change out tubes which many do. I feel I have enough to worry about with my cart's setting on the turntable then have to fiddle with settings on a pre.
I like the idea of changing loads without having to fiddle with dip switches on the back or underneath the phonostage. The only thing I complain about my phonostage is the fact that I need to flip dip switches on the back if I want to mess with load. For someone that swaps out carts once every 100 hours of playing time, that is a little inconvenient.
The Puffin sounds pretty darn good, but it gets panned by anyone who thinks digital conversion is some sort of death knell for sound quality. Shannon's a smart dude, and he's pulled this product off well. My history with phono stages is short, yet vast. This phono stage never presents anything to indicate it may be inferior, unless you're talking about JC3+ phono stages and above, which it just doesn't compete with. It's a very good product, but if you have something $1000 or less that you're happy with, the Puffin isn't going to revolutionize your setup. But, the fact it can help with Azimuth setup (mono mode + ADC levels, if I remember right), and give the user options to tailor their setup? For someone shopping in the $400-$500 range, it's killer. I prefer it over the Budgie I used to have, a Phonomena II, PHO-8, Mani, and iPhono2 I've owned previously. It's bettered by the Chinook and Herron I've also had, but that's to be expected.
I have the Decware ZP3 and I couldn't be happier with it. Decware products do what they are supposed to do and do it well!
Right, because messing with sound by tube rolling isn't a crapshoot or anything. I've gotten paired, balanced, matched tubes where one exhibits microphonics and the other doesn't, and is otherwise perfect. Digital takes the gamble out of the equation.
