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Best Digital Phono preamp

Ok, but all in one device, a little more convenient
meh.. you only connect the ADC if necessary
if for many here .. the digital approach is very attached to the pleasure of juggling, measuring, searching on the cartdriges turntables, for many others the possible use of this is very occasional or even quite rare... or never
;-)
 
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Waxwing has one extra PEQ that is user adjustable on addition to all the selectable EQs.

I use most of the Swiss Army knife features.
1. Azimuth to set cartridge crosstalk to minimum ( Ortofon test record)
2. Balance to adjust cartridge unbalance ( Ortofon test record )
3.Set / check anti-skating correctly by Ortofon test record( listening works fine too)
4. Low cut off filter to 20-25Hz to prevent toneram resonance effect go to amp/speaker.
5,I use Eq AIR=1 to make my sloping Shure MM cartridge perfectly flat. With MC and Waxwing I would use PEQ for the 12-15k resonance peak, My Puffin does not have that so Warmth/Air/Treble can be used.
6.Digitize LP recording via Toslink-to-USB to PC. Can compare different setups and cartridges instantly by playing was files to DAC. Make soundtracks for YouTube .
7. Measure cartridge and TT, Waxwing/puffin can do special EQ that fits test records non-RIAA Eq.
8. Magic to make noisy second hand records listenable .
9.DeRumble - see Manual , it works .Tighter bass on warped records .
10. check Turntable speed, handy for drifting belt drives, so I no when to clean and rejuvenate belt( talcum treatment) or adjust DC motor.


Many people are playing misaligned unbalanced cartridges with noise and rumble and wrong speed , and may be happily? unaware of the problems, but only until they hear the improvements Park Audio Waxwing/Puffin can give, especially if you utilise a test record (Ortofon is OK for azimuth, balance and tracking, but not for frequency response. )
 
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what follows is not an attack on the waxwing which also benefits from a beautiful integration...but in any case in the assistance with adjustments there are of course other options often based on powerful software often free.. . and an ADC, even second-hand, correct punctually placed downstream of a classic prephono is enough...

the cost and difficulties, and their individual limits, are on the tests disks side ( a large part of the discussions here) ...not the acquisition analysis processing...
(This is clearly the irony of this approach which is supposed to be serious.....and we are constantly reminded of the limits of this medium, our LPs, for our music... I am talking technically, not subjectively)
 
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Yes, I used to do stuff by recording and in software, many steps and cumbersome, especially to figure out and linearize the “strange” EQ in testrecords. I still do specific things in CoolEdit pro /REW.

Just much quicker and convenient to read data directly in the Puffin display, and it is an audio interface in it self, with proper loading .

The main use for people with no technical interest what so ever will be to get correct balance and gain, and maybe treble /bass since hardly any amplifiers has such controls these days..
 
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(There is software that allows measurements and observations in real time (rew virtins mt etc.) without going through wav recording etc.)

the problem is the relevance and choice of discs for each specific subject...and their limits (the strength of the exchanges here is to be able to share on these subjects... discs...)
and honestly you and I have a small fortune worth of test discs..while an acquisition card costs a few dozen dollars.
;-)
 
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@pogo paradoxically the minidsp adept albeit less feature packed than the waxwing IS the best "raw" ADC phono for your cartdrige.

I have the 310MC as well (a fantastic cartdrige, well above the vm540ml it replaced) and unlike you I use a SUT (AT630) from my SL-QL1 to my pro-ject S3B.
I have been researching a lot on characteristics of both the SUT and the 310MC and discovered that :
- the 310MC (probable) best/recommanded load is 30 ohm. Why I think so ? because it was the de facto cartdrige for the technics SL-10 which had an internal pre-preamp (basically an internal sut) with an 2.5mv output / 30 ohms input (here or here) . With an internal impedance of 30 ohm as well it means that it's wide open.
- thanks to this explanation and this one I understand that the load an LOMC see is only dependant to its internal impedance and the resistance at the input phono preamp (or SUT). Therefore and leaving aside gain parameters (those are also affected by both internal & external impedance) the ideal input resistance for the 310MC is 27kOhms using a SUT or 30Ohms using a MC phono preamp.

By having fixed inputs of 47kOhms or 200Ohms, the waxwing is less flexible and in our case a lesser sparing partner to the 310MC. The Adept provide 50Ohms for MC and 33kOhms with MM (with my at630 it means a equivalent 37Ohms load) which would result in better sounding cartdrige...

Otherwise I would also welcome additional features to the minidsp adept. For example 2 or 3 PEQ, a parametric HPF for the low end, a "magic" pop & click attenuator and 0.1db balance control to name fews...
 
Load on LOMC doesn’t matter much at all as they’re primarily DCR. Shoot for x10 as a general rule, but it’s so not critical. The load may matter more for the phonostage if it doesn’t behave well.

Load on SUTs can matter, but you need a low impedance source and scope to figure out what that will be, or someone who already has for the SUT and cartridge you’re using.
 
Load on SUTs can matter, but you need a low impedance source and scope to figure out what that will be, or someone who already has for the SUT and cartridge you’re using.
What manipulation are you thinking of exactly?
 
Load on LOMC doesn’t matter much at all as they’re primarily DCR. Shoot for x10 as a general rule, but it’s so not critical. The load may matter more for the phonostage if it doesn’t behave well.

Remember usual advice on LOMC applies to low impedance LOMC (ideally less than 10Ohms but will somewhat works up to 20Ohms) otherwise it really depends on your gear and what matters to you. If your phono preamp doesn't have an "internal sut" AND present a too high load to your cartdrige this will both tame top end (and give more bass if you that's your thing) and affect the resonant peaks of the LOMC. Even if these are usually not in the audible band they may result in overloading the phono stage which will be detrimental to the sound (similar to intersamples over) and cause more ticks & pops.

While analog phono have sufficient headroom to deal with all of those, this is less the case for ADC devices such as waxwing (MC -> 2.7mv overload) & adept (MC -> 4.2 mv overload in low mode) therefore i think proper loading will matter more with these devices. By providing selectable input impedance (50 Ω, 100 Ω, 1 kΩ) the minidsp Adept provide a very useful hardware feature.
 
Remember usual advice on LOMC applies to low impedance LOMC (ideally less than 10Ohms but will somewhat works up to 20Ohms) otherwise it really depends on your gear and what matters to you. If your phono preamp doesn't have an "internal sut" AND present a too high load to your cartdrige this will both tame top end (and give more bass if you that's your thing) and affect the resonant peaks of the LOMC. Even if these are usually not in the audible band they may result in overloading the phono stage which will be detrimental to the sound (similar to intersamples over) and cause more ticks & pops.

While analog phono have sufficient headroom to deal with all of those, this is less the case for ADC devices such as waxwing (MC -> 2.7mv overload) & adept (MC -> 4.2 mv overload in low mode) therefore i think proper loading will matter more with these devices. By providing selectable input impedance (50 Ω, 100 Ω, 1 kΩ) the minidsp Adept provide a very useful hardware feature.

You're really hard to follow as you appear to have your highs and lows in regard to load effects backward, in addition to misunderstanding what "wide open" means - lini corrected that in the very next post.

My 310MC at 1kHz is 25R, 8.8uH. If for some odd reason someone wanted to load that at 47k (and 150pF), the peak is a whopping 0.02dB at 200kHz, and at 1R -3dB at 200kHz. Completely flat in the audible range, and nothing of note outside.

200R is a completely reasonable general load.
 
You're really hard to follow as you appear to have your highs and lows in regard to load effects backward, in addition to misunderstanding what "wide open" means - lini corrected that in the very next post.
I probably misunderstood some of the explanations on load effect, especially wrt direct cartdrige load (no SUT), so please correct me if I'm wrong (here to learn).
Are you saying that aside of (SUT and) bad engineering of the phono stage, input load of the phono stage has no real impact on LOMC in audible range ?
 
I probably misunderstood some of the explanations on load effect, especially wrt direct cartdrige load (no SUT), so please correct me if I'm wrong (here to learn).
Are you saying that aside of (SUT and) bad engineering of the phono stage, input load of the phono stage has no real impact on LOMC in audible range ?

Pathological loads aside, correct.
 
 
Thank you very clear! Impact on FR is very unlikely and otherwise unaudible (less than 0.1-0.2 db in your graph).

One last thing that still bother me: This post summarize well my current comprehension on load impact... but while I understand how it applies to SUT (reducing gain through a lower effective turn ratio) I fail to understand if it applies as well to direct load... otherwise can I reduce or increase headroom through load (without a SUT) ?
 
The cartridge rated level (0.2mv for 310MC) vs maximum output level "before increased distortion" of the phono stage.
With a SUT (and given a high impedance LOMC) I understand that I can somewhat have variable signal output presented to the phono stage depending on the input load (the input load affecting the final turn ratio when reduced).
 
IS the best "raw" ADC phono for your cartdrige
Is that really the case?
The Waxwing can amplify the 310MC better with its higher analog gain. I don't see the 200 ohms as a problem either, as the fine adjustment can be done by AIR.
 
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