Review on Parks Audio's Puffin Phono DSP: An Ideal Preamp for Enhanced Vinyl System Sound by Yousef Dudley

I bought this because I was trying a few other preamps that didn't do what I needed (Schiit Mani and ART DJ). I use a passive preamp (Shi'it Saga in Shi'it Vidar) and have not been able to get a reasonable level from other phono stages without clipping. I can now get a good level with the DSP by cranking the puffin volume up and dialing in whatever gain I want. The recommended setting for my Sumiko Moonstone is 44dB, but now I can crank it up to 48dB or 52dB or more without distortion. Wonderful. I'll play around with it a bit more to find the perfect settings, but so far I'm very happy with it. I spent a few minutes playing with Tilt and Air. DSP can be very subtle and quite nice. I'm not sure I'll use the EQ as I'm very fond of my Schiit Loki but my JBL Studio 580s are too noisy for my ears. And maybe I can find a good EQ setting with Puffin. It's very nice to have such opportunities. Considering that almost everything is recorded digitally these days, and new records are digitally remastered from old material, I have no objection to a digital device in the analog signal chain. The 24/96 converters sound great and I doubt many (if any) people will be able to tell this from a purely analog signal circuit in a blind test. I'm no audiophile expert but this thing sounds fantastic to me and I can't imagine I'd ever need or want a better phono stage. Worth every penny and more.