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Help! Phono preamp with A/D & SPDIF output - advice needed

M

mickb

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Looking for recommendations. The market is awash with great preamps, but very few with A/D & optical output. My Lyngdorf MP-50 processor will only take digital inputs.

Budget? Ideally under £1000. The bottom end of the market is the Pro-ject Phono Optical, but this doesn't measure well. After that there seems to be a huge jump to the £900+ bracket with these:

Parks Audio Puffin - around £800 after import duties - a bit DIY
Unison Research Uphono - £900+ - may be suitable, not easy to find in stock
PS Audio Nuwave phono - £1000+ - will be expensive after import & voltage conversion
Leema Agena - £4k? - need lottery win!

Any others out there, what do others have?

thanks!
 
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£800 for the Puffin sounds v high. I paid just over £400 3 years ago via Amazon.com with their all inclusive shipping / customs etc - this before the digital out was available.

I added digital out myself later using the step by step instructions on their site - very straightforward - at least then.

I think the digital variant is higher by c$100 so that would increase the GBP price & maybe their pricing has increased since too - but double seems a lot...
 
If you can find one for sale, since it’s not been made for some time, the PS Audio Nuwave Phono Converter is rather good, with extremely flexible settings on the ADC.
 
mickb said:
Looking for recommendations. The market is awash with great preamps, but very few with A/D & optical output. My Lyngdorf MP-50 processor will only take digital inputs.

Budget? Ideally under £1000. The bottom end of the market is the Pro-ject Phono Optical, but this doesn't measure well. After that there seems to be a huge jump to the £900+ bracket with these:

Parks Audio Puffin - around £800 after import duties - a bit DIY
Unison Research Uphono - £900+ - may be suitable, not easy to find in stock
PS Audio Nuwave phono - £1000+ - will be expensive after import & voltage conversion
Leema Agena - £4k? - need lottery win!

Any others out there, what do others have?

thanks!
Click to expand...
What’s your cartridge? Do you have a Phono Stage currently?

When I used Lyngdorf I used an ADC and then a DAC/ADC (Thomann Swisstronic £30 - RME ADI Pro Black £1500) with my Phono Stages.

Mytek used to do an ADC if you can find one used it might be in budget.
 
rtrt said:
£800 for the Puffin sounds v high. I paid just over £400 3 years ago via Amazon.com with their all inclusive shipping / customs etc - this before the digital out was available.

I added digital out myself later using the step by step instructions on their site - very straightforward - at least then.

I think the digital variant is higher by c$100 so that would increase the GBP price & maybe their pricing has increased since too - but double seems a lot...
Click to expand...

Thanks - yes, maybe estimate was a bit high, prob closer to £600 & shipping for the spdif version.
I'm starting at the low end, just bought a Planar 2 with Rega Carbon cart (fairly poor), using a Rega Fono mini pre into a very cheap A/D convertor.
The Nuwave Phono does sound like it could be a good option, when I upgrade to a better cart,etc, but they're tough to find used, in the UK at least.
 
mickb said:
Looking for recommendations. The market is awash with great preamps, but very few with A/D & optical output. My Lyngdorf MP-50 processor will only take digital inputs.

Budget? Ideally under £1000. The bottom end of the market is the Pro-ject Phono Optical, but this doesn't measure well. After that there seems to be a huge jump to the £900+ bracket with these:

Parks Audio Puffin - around £800 after import duties - a bit DIY
Unison Research Uphono - £900+ - may be suitable, not easy to find in stock
PS Audio Nuwave phono - £1000+ - will be expensive after import & voltage conversion
Leema Agena - £4k? - need lottery win!

Any others out there, what do others have?

thanks!
Click to expand...

Didn't the Sonneteer phonostage exist with an USB digital output at some point?
 
mickb said:
Thanks - yes, maybe estimate was a bit high, prob closer to £600 & shipping for the spdif version.
I'm starting at the low end, just bought a Planar 2 with Rega Carbon cart (fairly poor), using a Rega Fono mini pre into a very cheap A/D convertor.
The Nuwave Phono does sound like it could be a good option, when I upgrade to a better cart,etc, but they're tough to find used, in the UK at least.
Click to expand...

Looks like its c£440 today - so about 10% more than I paid. That's the without digital output version by looks of it - though you can add coax digital out yourself very easily - if you can solder 2 wires to a pin header and drill a hole in the chassis for the RCA out.

I didn't actually bother with the chassis mod - fed the cable through one of the 4 Allen bolt holes as a test and just left it like that - ie a captive digital out cable instead of a RCA socket.
--------------------
Shipping & Fee Details
Price $489.00
AmazonGlobal Shipping $10.76
Estimated Import Fees Deposit $102.24
Total $602.00
https://www.amazon.com/Puffin-pream...642858164&sprefix=parks+puffin,aps,273&sr=8-1
 
If you're looking for a top class A2D with phono, have a look at the Prism Sound Lyra 2

https://beta.prismsound.com/products/lyra2/tech-specs/

I bought one of these a couple of years ago to make digital archives of my R2R master tapes. The Lyra 2 has a RIAA input for phono, but the Lyra 1 does not. The Lyra 2 also has the SPDIF and optical outputs you need. I haven't used mine to archive records. But Prism Sound are renowned for their A2D converters, and their products are used an many top recording studios around the world. I am really happy with the quality of the tape transfers I get from this unit.
 
Thanks all for your input here. I've pulled the trigger on the Puffin today, so hopefully find pout soon how it works out :)
 
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