Wonder product?

The Puffin is great mainly for poorly recorded albums and mono records if you don't have a mono cartridge. I use it on my secondary TT. It is a fantastic equalizer. The owner is also outstanding and fixed an issue on a 5 year old unit at zero cost. It is easy to self update to newer versions. It is not a toy but an amazing piece of digital engineering. In the end, it's like the Loki Max, mainly ignored by the old school audiophiles. I'm old but not old school.

The Puffin is a great entry level phono stage that does a lot of cool things and has more than enough gain to drive any cartridge. 

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "wonder" product, but I can't think of anything at its price point that would be better.  Better / more expensive phono stages will have more dynamics and detail than the Puffin is capable of. 

From what I've read, it sounds like the Waxwing is an evolution of the Puffin and provides the ability to make adjustments through an app.

One cool feature is you can setup your Azimuth with the Puffin. I feel it is good value for money as long as you are not a purist. I own a Fozgometer to setup azimuth and I have a decent analog rig therefore I would not have this in my main system. In a second system like Bayliner said. All day long. It’s very versatile and I would have no issues someone buying this for their first phono stage. If you have a MC cartridge you might spend the money on a used Stepup transformer instead which would run you same if not less money and have better sound. I hope this helped. 

@baylinor 1+ I have the capability to do all that the puffin does and more with my preamp/processor and having this kind of capability is amazing, but my preamp is now up to $15,000 and I am sure the Puffin is a lot less expensive.  

The only thing I do not see in the literature is a signal to noise ratio. I am also not fond of electronic azimuth setting. the stylus has to be 90 degrees to the record surface and this is easy to see on a mirrored surface. I am also concerned about the ADCs and DACs in the unit. Those in the MiniDSP SHD are not satisfactory for a high end system. The SHD Studio with outboard DACs is a much better deal. Park mentions a digital output which would allow use of an outboard DAC. 

It sounds like you could be having a good conversation with Shannon Parks, the owner. Just email him and he will contact you for certain. One of the better audio dealer anywhere. Actually there are only a handful of adjustments I usually make on the Puffin, azimuth is not one of them.