Aesthetix vs. Allnic vs. ARC ph7

I own the Herron and have owned the Rhea at the same time. I saw what I thought was a good deal and bought the Rhea out of curiosity. It took while to figure what tubes to put in it to get it to be transparent which it wasn’t with stock tubes. I found that the 6DJ8 was the key tube to obtain the voicing I was looking for with a Telefunken being the preferred tube. For the other tubes (v1-v4), I found two different combinations that worked well. The first is all Telefunken and the second is vintage EI’s in v1&v2 with GE black plate 5751’s in v3& v4. I liked what I heard enough to buy an Aesthetix IO. I sold off the Rhea once I had the IO but regret doing so. The Herron sits idle these days.

The comparisons mentioned above were made between the Herron and Rhea, not the IO. The Rhea was a standard, not the signature version. The point I was trying to make is the tube compliment plays an important role in what your get out of the Rhea, more than the Herron in my experience.

As for IO tubes, I use all Tele's for the 12AX7's and the 6DJ8. The 6SN7's are Tung Sol. In the power supply, there are Russian 12AX7's and until recently Mullard EL34 XF2's. The Mullards have gone south so have been experimenting with different tubes in that position. One other thing to note about the IO. Mine started life as a signature. I replaced the coupling caps with Duelund Cast coppers and the loading resistors with Nude Vishays. I still need to deal with the output caps which are still stock.

Both. From what Andy Bowman at Vintage Tube Services told me there's not much difference between the two sonically. FYI, both the EI's that I lamented over and the first stage Tele's came from VTS.

Rwd -What brand(s) of tubes are you getting from Andy?

Hey Rick, let me know what you think when you get your tubes. I've had the RCA's and the GE's in the IO and tried the Sylvaia's in my ARC gear. Scott

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread.

Lew, the IO has a lot more space around the coupling caps than does the smaller Rhea or Janus. That's part of the reason I haven't changed the output caps in the IO as I don't have the real estate to put in the pop can sized Duelunds. I'll probably end up with Mundorf silver/gold oils there. What caps did you use in your Janus?

Analogluvr, no my Herron is the VTPH-1 while the Rhea was a standard non-signature. When Keith voiced the VTPH-1, he used Russian tubes so they work better there than with the Rhea. I remembered I tried NOS tubes with Herron and they didn't make that big of a difference. I don't recall what brand of tubes I tried but I have Tele's, Bugle Boys, RCA's and EI's on hand. Overall, the sound quality of the small signal Russian tubes are crap IMO.

The Rhea however (and the IO for that matter) is far more sensitive to tubes and can sound horrible or great depending on what tubes are used. Had I heard the Rhea with only Russian tubes, I would have never liked it enough to go further along that path. If you had swapped tubes between the Rhea and Herron and used a decent 6922 I think your comparison might have come out much closer. You might have still preferred the Herron but you would have gotten a taste of what the Aesthetix brings to the table.

The 0.22uF caps are coupling caps and the 2.0uF are output caps. In the signature series, the output caps went from 2.0uF to 4.0uF so they are a load to fit in. I have 4 per side to deal with in the IO and not much room.

I've been curious on how the Vcap coppers compare to the Duelunds. At somepoint, I may replace the 1st stage coupling to the coppers to find out. It had a teflon cap in that position to begin with.