Parks Audio Puffin Review (Phono Stage)

[AudioSceptic]

Point me to a record with 96 dB dynamic range please.

Or even 80.

 

[P_M]

Point me to a record with 96 dB dynamic range please.

I would like to share some info with you. Take it for what its worth and judge for yourself.
Here are 3 pics - the first is the noise floor of my phono preamp with the stylus simply resting on the record and the record not turning - its paused. This is just to capture baseline ambient and inherent noise level of the system.
The second and third pics are the record playing and stylus in the lead-in and lead-out (silent) grooves.
I would like to draw your attention to the difference in noise floor between these especially above 1Khz. Even if you go down to 500hz its pretty respectable. This is the reason why I believe the medium has a lot of dynamic range.

And all this on nothing fancy - this is a simple vintage yamaha direct drive turntable, with a even more basic cartridge (shure m75) and no fancy isolation and placement tactics applied. I bet if this was a $4000 heavy marble platter tt molded in 100 lbs of concrete with $2000 microline stylus and a $1500 preamp, mounted on a $1000 wall mount, these pictures would look even better all the way down to 100hz.

edit: btw, those silly spurs at 17khz and 38Khz are probably my neighbors solar panels. you may ignore them.
edit2: just noticed the overload margin on this puffin preamp is terrible. I would not let that stanton 680HP anywhere near it. Its a high output cart that will overwhelm the preamp very easily.

 

[Helicopter]

Found out my cartdrige model is stanton 680 hp.

I would say it might depend on your records. If they have scuffs and pops, the Puffin is great. If they are pristine, I am not sure how much you will get from a great phono stage while running a conical stylus. Also, if you are doing rips Puffin should be great.

IME digitising the cartridge output then applying RIAA correction in software gives a quieter and more accurate output than an analogue phono stage.

IE comparing a Goldmund PH2 phono stage into a Metric Halo ADC was not better than the phono stage in my Devialet amp and the Goldmund PH2 into the Devialet analogue input sounded fine but seemed pointless.
Anyway i gave up ripping LPs anyway and just play the LP itself if i want to listen to it

Does the loading of your audio interface give you any trouble?

 

[Frank Dernie]

I would like to share some info with you. Take it for what its worth and judge for yourself.
Here are 3 pics - the first is the noise floor of my phono preamp with the stylus simply resting on the record and the record not turning - its paused. This is just to capture baseline ambient and inherent noise level of the system.
The second and third pics are the record playing and stylus in the lead-in and lead-out (silent) grooves.
I would like to draw your attention to the difference in noise floor between these especially above 1Khz. Even if you go down to 500hz its pretty respectable. This is the reason why I believe the medium has a lot of dynamic range.

And all this on nothing fancy - this is a simple vintage yamaha direct drive turntable, with a even more basic cartridge (shure m75) and no fancy isolation and placement tactics applied. I bet if this was a $4000 heavy marble platter tt molded in 100 lbs of concrete with $2000 microline stylus and a $1500 preamp, mounted on a $1000 wall mount, these pictures would look even better all the way down to 100hz.


View attachment 123886


View attachment 123887


View attachment 123888


edit: btw, those silly spurs at 17khz and 38Khz are probably my neighbors solar panels. you may ignore them.
edit2: just noticed the overload margin on this puffin preamp is terrible. I would not let that stanton 680HP anywhere near it. Its a high output cart that will overwhelm the preamp very easily.

What is your 0dB reference for these graphs?
One of the difficulties in measuring the usable dynamic range of a record player is that the maximum level is pretty well impossible to define because it is frequency dependant (it is not possible to cut high levels at high frequency) and "acceptable" distortion dependant which depends on the company and cutting engineer, since they don't want very distorted or skipping records but they don't know what cartidge is being used so they have limits of their own.
You have shown what the low level frequency content of an unmodulated groove can be on your system but not what the maximum level is, which is not a straight horizontal line for an LP anyway, so this doesn't tell us anything about dynamic range yet.
There is a bit of info about cutting levels here

 

[Frank Dernie]

I would say it might depend on your records. If they have scuffs and pops, the Puffin is great. If they are pristine, I am not sure how much you will get from a great phono stage while running a conical stylus. Also, if you are doing rips Puffin should be great.


Does the loading of your audio interface give you any trouble?

With the Metric Halo it was the Goldmund PH2 which loaded the cartridge. MH will load one of the inputs to your cartridge requirement (or they would a few years ago) and RIAA is a standard selectable plug in and it was what I was going to do before I bought the Devialet D-Premier which had the quietest phono stage I had tried.
Unfortunately the later pcb card update with more DSP etc has resulted in a slightly noisier phono input on what they now call the Devialet "Expert" line but I don't play LPs often and the MM input with my Ortofon step up transformer (which I already had) is as quiet as the MC input on the D-Premier was, in my subjective estimation

 

[P_M]

What is your 0dB reference for these graphs?
One of the difficulties in measuring the usable dynamic range of a record player is that the maximum level is pretty well impossible to define because it is frequency dependant (it is not possible to cut high levels at high frequency) and "acceptable" distortion dependant which depends on the company and cutting engineer, since they don't want very distorted or skipping records but they don't know what cartidge is being used so they have limits of their own.
You have shown what the low level frequency content of an unmodulated groove can be on your system but not what the maximum level is, which is not a straight horizontal line for an LP anyway, so this doesn't tell us anything about dynamic range yet.
There is a bit of info about cutting levels here

The ADC is a M-audio C400 usb interface, preamp is Cambridge Audio Solo, so 0db would be standard line level. I get the RIAA eq and cutting level, and cartridge level but does it matter as long as the frequency being output registers 0db at the end of the chain ? Surely you cant be saying that its impossible to hit 0db on a record as tracking test signals are usually +12, +15db or more. And you already saw the noise floor is easily -100db for much of the spectrum. So what is missing ?

 

[Frank Dernie]

The ADC is a M-audio C400 usb interface, preamp is Cambridge Audio Solo, so 0db would be standard line level. I get the RIAA eq and cutting level, and cartridge level but does it matter as long as the frequency being output registers 0db at the end of the chain ? Surely you cant be saying that its impossible to hit 0db on a record as tracking test signals are usually +12, +15db or more. And you already saw the noise floor is easily -100db for much of the spectrum. So what is missing ?

I only asked what you had set as 0dB.
What is the standard level?

-100dB doesn't tell much unless what 0dB is is known.

 

[P_M]

The maudio c400 spec says the max input level is +2.2dbu so I think that means 0db on the chart would be 2.2dbu (or 0dbV or 1Vrms or 2.83Vp-p. Is that what you are asking ?

 

[LTig]

And you already saw the noise floor is easily -100db for much of the spectrum. So what is missing ?

Just a reminder: the level of the noise floor in a spectrum is not identical to the signal/noise ratio. You have to add the FFT gain which depends on the FFT size.

 

[morgul]

I think I should upgrade my cartridge also maybe an Audio Technica VM95C/H would be a great, but not too much expensive upgrade.
Looking at the cambridge audio duo, which seems a good buy for 250€ around here. Then I could get a MOTU M4 audio interface if I can find one.

 

[Balle Clorin]

Sorry, but is the point of having Cambridge Duo when you have the Puffin?? I bought my Cambridge CP2 years ago ,and have then Puffin now-Toslink out-. Puffin is much more flexible and fun. Save up for the Puffin right away if you do not have it ,that is my advice

 

[morgul]

Yes the Puffin with toslink output 's surely better, but price is much above

 

[frans callebaut]

i have a turntable with two tone arms, one with a cartridge for vinyls and an other one with a cartridge for 78's. as i see that the puffin only has one input, i will have to change cables every time i want to switch between vinyl and 78's. or am i wrong ?

 

[abdo123]

I would like to share some info with you. Take it for what its worth and judge for yourself.
Here are 3 pics - the first is the noise floor of my phono preamp with the stylus simply resting on the record and the record not turning - its paused. This is just to capture baseline ambient and inherent noise level of the system.
The second and third pics are the record playing and stylus in the lead-in and lead-out (silent) grooves.
I would like to draw your attention to the difference in noise floor between these especially above 1Khz. Even if you go down to 500hz its pretty respectable. This is the reason why I believe the medium has a lot of dynamic range.

And all this on nothing fancy - this is a simple vintage yamaha direct drive turntable, with a even more basic cartridge (shure m75) and no fancy isolation and placement tactics applied. I bet if this was a $4000 heavy marble platter tt molded in 100 lbs of concrete with $2000 microline stylus and a $1500 preamp, mounted on a $1000 wall mount, these pictures would look even better all the way down to 100hz.


View attachment 123886


View attachment 123887


View attachment 123888


edit: btw, those silly spurs at 17khz and 38Khz are probably my neighbors solar panels. you may ignore them.
edit2: just noticed the overload margin on this puffin preamp is terrible. I would not let that stanton 680HP anywhere near it. Its a high output cart that will overwhelm the preamp very easily.

I don't think your true peaks are anywhere close to 0dBFS. my true peaks are -6dBFS. here are my measurements.

Groove noise only (quiet groove during playback, no music) with Ortofon 2M Blue and Cambridge Audio Duo.

For people who are interested in how the Cambridge Audio Duo performes in real life use here are my measurements. It's really mains limited (inaudible).

 

[Helicopter]

i have a turntable with two tone arms, one with a cartridge for vinyls and an other one with a cartridge for 78's. as i see that the puffin only has one input, i will have to change cables every time i want to switch between vinyl and 78's. or am i wrong ?

You coul put something passive like a Schiit Sys or Douk RCA switcher between the TT and the Puffin. Of course this will change the loading a bit.

 

[abdo123]

i have a turntable with two tone arms, one with a cartridge for vinyls and an other one with a cartridge for 78's. as i see that the puffin only has one input, i will have to change cables every time i want to switch between vinyl and 78's. or am i wrong ?

you can also buy an RCA switch.

 

[Balle Clorin]

Measuring the Puffin LO cut off and deRumble with Elipson test tecord, White and Pink noise. Note the difference between the WN and PN(RTA setting in REW) tracks

EDIT: Pickup is Audio Technica MC. OC9ML/II on SME V on Michell Gyro SE

 

[pozz]

Measuring the Puffin LO cut off and deRumble with Elipson test tecord, White and Pink noise. Note the difference between the WN and PN(RTA setting in REW) tracks



View attachment 159010






View attachment 159009

You're measuring with an MM cartridge? Apologies if you already said.

 

[Balle Clorin]

Pickup is Audio Technica MC. OC9ML/II on SME V on Michell Gyro SE

 

[pozz]

Pickup is Audio Technica MC. OC9ML/II on SME V on Michell Gyro SE

I'm surprised to see that resonant peak above 10kHz. Not that I know the background very well, but is it from the interaction with the preamp? Is it a measurement artefact?