And the price starts at $489 (the unit I am reviewing, with TOSLINK output, sells for $639). And if you are a visual learner like I am, Shannon Parks has a very easy-to-follow demonstration of this procedure on his YouTube channel.Īll of this functionality comes from a single black box with two buttons, one adjustment knob, an LCD screen, and one RCA input. The Puffin will display the output of each channel in real-time while you play a test record, so you adjust the azimuth setting of your cartridge over and over until you get the output readings for both channels as close to each other as you can. Just recently added is the ability to adjust your cartridge’s azimuth settings. Neat!)Īnd the list of the Puffin’s capabilities keeps growing.

(You can also do this with a CD player’s output as well. It will convert its output to mono, which is essential if you listen to mono recordings and your preamplifier does not have a mono switch. It will use its software to compare the number of pops and clicks versus the time of silence and give you a letter grade. The Puffin will also let you do several other very useful things that you did not know you needed. Whether it’s a 7-inch, 10-inch, or 12-inch vinyl record, to be played at 16, 33, or 45rpm, or a shellac record to be played at 78rpm, the Parks Audio Puffin can help you fine-tune and tweak your cartridge and get every last drop of musical detail out of the record’s grooves. I honestly can’t think of a single type of phono cartridge or vinyl (or shellac) record the Puffin can’t improve. It can work with an endless variety of turntable configurations. The Parks Audio Puffin is a Swiss Army knife for vinyl enthusiasts. And, as if that weren’t enough, you can buy a version of the Puffin that will send a 96 kHz/24-bit S/PDIF output signal to a DAC through a digital coax or TOSLINK cable. You can equalize the output for your room’s acoustics, play mono records with a mono cart, grade the quality of a record, and even keep track of the playing hours of your cartridge.

And if you happen to have an album that was mastered out of phase, the Puffin will let you correct that as well.Īnd, believe it or not, that’s just a few of the functions the Puffin is capable of. The Puffin will let you equalize its output for a very wide variety of vinyl EQ settings, such as those found on Columbia 78rpm records, Teldec/DGG LPs, or the standard RCA RIAA curves. The Puffin will play the output of essentially any kind of phono cartridge, whatever its power output or load requirements are. Shannon Parks of Parks Audio has extended what a phono preamplifier is capable of with his compact and clever Puffin DSP phono preamplifier.

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