Best Phone Stage for under $1,000.000

I make no claims as to it being the "best", but you can find used Musical Surroundings Nova Phonomena units for well below $1K.  It's a very neutral unit, very quiet, and has a ton of loading and gain settings.  I also like the Jolida JD9 in that price range. 

I've been considering one of the Parks Puffin units.  I've seen and heard it and the demo system it was in sounded fantastic.  I don't need another phono stage, but I love its compact size and versatility.  It might replace one of my JD9s or one of the Novas.

I'm obsessed with phono stages! I have so many! Most just sit around collecting dust but the one I come back to the most is the Wright WPP-100C. Not only does it look cool with it's copper chassis but to my ears it just sounds magical. They hardly ever show up on the used market. I will probably never sell mine. The Wright gets my vote!

I have some experiences for you. The tube box SE is killer sounding, you get a low noise floor and the bloom of tubes, it's great sounding and cheap in comparison to others. The musical surroundings nova is also very good sounding, it has lower level detail retrieval and a blacker background than the tube box SE, it's also a litter darker sounding (in the mids) with less bloom, the bass has great control and the treble is very clean. Rogue audio Aris you can buy used for around that price and it betters both of those, it's just amazing sounding, with a huge soundstage and great layering, and musical enough you can listen for hours and just get lost in the music.

I'm strongly considering the Parks Puffin to replace my Rega Fono Mini A2D. That little phono preamp has been in my system since 2012, and gets the job done! But; I'm ready to upgrade. I'm running a PolyTable w/ Digital Motor Drive, Jelco arm, and Ortofon 2M Bronze through a Jolida JD302CRC tube integrated (50 watts per). My towers are Paradigm Monitor 7 V5. For more bass, oftentimes, I'll turn on my Mirage 10" 200 watt powered sub. All is good, really good! But; I know the little Rega is the weak link here.
     I've just read so many good things about the Puffin that I'm thinking for under $500, it might very well be a good move. I was considering a Sutherland Engineering KC Vibe, and even the Insight ($1,399).  But; if it's true that the Puffin has a really low noise floor, and big soundstage, what's to lose? Not to mention, all the other features like pop and click reduction..

I've had the Puffin for a while now and at its price point, it's a great unit.  I've since made some phono stage upgrades in my main system, but the Puffin wouldn't be embarrassed if I put it back there.  It doesn't really do anything wrong and is really neutral.  It just doesn't quite have the dynamics of my Manley Chinook or Pass XP-15, but they both cost multiples of what the Puffin does.  I haven't upgraded the firmware, so I'm not sure how well it deals with pops and clicks.