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Measurements of Parks Audio Puffin Phono Stage
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Some of my music is only on LP, that is the only time I use my turntable. A phono stage like this allows lots of flexibility and a freedom from noise and distortion analogue RIAA stages can't beat.
I have some stuff I really love that only seems to be on vinyl as well, but I also have a small number of records I prefer on vinyl, and sometime I play it just for a change. I'd estimate that 90% of my collection sounds the effectively the same, or better on digital, but taste in music will change this a lot, I would never listen to classical vinyl now given an option, but noisy rock yes please.
It may be lower in distortion. But due to its digitzation, it sounds like a phono stage for people that use a turntable as a last choice. Or for hipsters buying bluetooth turntables!
Why would digitisation sound like anything at all? ADCs and DACs have been transparent for very many years, so that leaves the DSP, which I expect would be done well enough.
S
If this phono stage and the miniDsp SHD got married and made a baby, it would be a killer unit - apply RIAA AND other DSP all in the digital domain and then spit out the "final" analog signal. I suppose it wont hurt too much to repeatedly go through the A-D-A path, but I'd prefer to avoid it so I don't feel dirty.
The DSP phono stage in the Devialet sounds a lot better to my ears than any other stage I've heard. I'd love to see in depth measurements of a few DSP phono stages Vs well respected normal stages.
This one could be working the same way as the Devialet, and may sound the same, or better even.
I didn't say it sounded like anything. it was a turn of phrase. "Sounds like fun".
Yes you did, you said it sounded like a phono stage for people etc etc.
I take things literally, so what does fun sound like and can you measure it?
S
Clearly you'll know it when you hear it!Yes you did, you said it sounded like a phono stage for people etc etc.
I take things literally, so what does fun sound like and can you measure it?
S
You can also measure fun very well.
How much fun are you having?
A. So much fun!
B. SO MUCH FUN!!
C. Meh.
Clearly you'll know it when you hear it!
You can also measure fun very well.
How much fun are you having?
A. So much fun!
B. SO MUCH FUN!!
C. Meh.
JP
Major Contributor
If it had balanced in and digital out I'd buy more than a few. I've been DSP RIAA for nearly three years now. Love it.
AnalogSteph
Major Contributor
Actually, flat amplification is much harder on the electronics. A conventional active RIAA circuit only requires a GBW of about 200 kHz if memory serves, hence why acceptable ones could be built back in the day with just two transistors or tubes. That said, these days we can just throw a few opamps at the problem. Records can spew out a fair bit of ultrasonic garbage though, so by the time you get to ADC input level you'd better have some decent slew rate going. It's a brute force approach, and that shows.
The problem with a simple two transistor stage is the limited open loop gain which results in high distortion at LF due to the RIAA equalisation taking off up to 20dB of feedback. The alternative of passive EQ requires a lot of gain so it can be attenuated, which gives distortion, noise and overload margin problems. That's why the best analogue phono stages had rather more than two active devices, and in effects were high gain opamps made from discrete components.
S
The anti aliasing filter on a competently engineered ADC (ie pretty well all of them) will remove the ultrasonic hash, surely? One of the technical beauties of digital is that as long as you understand and deal with the signals properly there are no surprises, very much unlike analogue where I had lots of unexpected problems to resolve back in the day (recording).
Burning Sounds
Addicted to Fun and Learning
When I was looking for an 8 channel DAC a few years ago I auditioned the Prism Sound Titan. Two of the input channels can have digital RIAA switched in. It seemed very good to me and it would have been nice to get rid of another box. In the end I went with another DAC, but I thought that was a very nice feature - shame more don't offer it.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Really? He must have changed his stance, because when I emailed him about it a few months ago, he said no plans.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
This is a measurement of Parks Audio DSP- based PUffin Phono amplifier. Yes, you read that right: it uses a DSP for implement RIAA curves and many, many other functions. It was kindly loaned to me in person to test our meet at friendly audio shop, Gig Harbor Audio. The unit retails for USD $399 including Prime shipping on Amazon.
Here is a quick shot of the unit while being tested with very dim light with my mobile phone:
The company is apparently well-known for its tube based phono stage. So imagine the shock and horror of its customer base when they heard that not only had he dispensed with tubes, but that the unit digitizes audio, processes it, and converts it back to analog. Sacrilegious! Quick search shows long threads of riots in street, folks feeling abandoned, going to psychiatrists and being asked about their childhood, etc.
Fortunately we are much more enlightened here.
The unit has boatload of parameters that can be changed through its LCD display. I did not try to navigate it and let the user do that.
In the interest of time, I asked its owner of one to set it to how he uses it. He programmed it as you see above with the gain of 52 dB.
Let's see how she measures.
Measurements
I only had time for one measurement which is my dashboard. I don't have canned templates for phono stages so pulled up the one for headphone amps, not realizing that the load is very low, 600 Ohm (low for phono stages/pre-amps, not headphone amps). So the distortion is likely higher than it would be with the typical 100 K ohm load I would normally use:
View attachment 18615
The first harmonic distortion is at a (good) -90 dB relative to our signal level. The reason SINAD is much worse is due to high level of low frequency noise. It is not distortion limited.
I don't have enough data to jude based on 52 dB of gain but just putting a wet thumb in the air, it seems to be very good performance given that massive amplification.
Conclusions
Based on this limited data, the Parks Audio Pluto seems to have good performance. Unlikely some of its customer base, I don't see any issue with digital processing to provide a much more flexible system with more accuracy.
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1. Did you play with the DSP emulation effects for tube and tape?
2. Interestingly, it would be a trivial software matter to add curves for tape EQ, either tape-head-direct NAB/IEC (voltages of tape heads are similar to phono carts) or conversion between NAB and IEC.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Why not just do the RIAA in the SHD itself? RIAA curves are pretty simple. Use a balanced XLR tonearm cable to the SHD's analog XLR inputs.
The trick would be the cartridge loading, but that's somehow being emulated in software, too...
OP
- Thread Starter
- #40
No. I only had a few minutes to test it amongst many others.
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