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Time to blast off from Rhea

I made an impulse purchase 1.5 years ago of a Rhea phono preamp. I have a low output MC cartridge, and was actually saving for an AR Reference 2. The dealer sold me his demo for a good discount. Upon getting it home, with my smaller room and efficient speakers, heard the noise. Dealer not willing to take it back as it was a demo sale. I replaced all the tubes with a set from Jim Mcshane which made the situation tolerable, but with limited use, these tubes became intolerably noisy. Put in some vintage RCA tubes in the V1/V2 and it sounds great again. Is this just the price to pay for pure tube amplification of 56 db? Should I just sell it, and buy the Parasound JC3 and be done with it?
tennisdoc40

Showing 1 response by tennisdoc40

tennisdoc40 OP
28 posts
 
I'm very happy with the rest of my system. Spectral electonics and cables into Martin Logan Montis speakers.
It was only after the introduction of the LOMC cartridge that I needed a separate phono section since the Spectral preamp had limited gain.
I have demo'd the JC3 which is dead quiet and detailed. As to the Manley Chinook, it basically is a solid state amp, with two 6922 tubes in it for show. I'll give it a posiitive for quiet but for 2200, you can get a better solid state phono section.
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