Aesthetix Rhea signature phono stage

I have a Rhea sig . Sounds great. Noisy? no. I use stock tubes and 56 db of gain

I have the Rhea (not signature). When I got it (used, on agon) the tube rush drove me crazy, coming off a solid state phono stage BUT it was a tube rolling issue. When I got my NOS Sylvanias (12AX7) and Amperex 6922 - all the tube rush went away (slightly there when I run my preamp all the way up which is fine) and it sounds sublime. I do plan on sending it in for the upgrade. No monoswitch but 3 arm inputs so you can get a 2nd arm for a mono-cartridge (or a cheap 2nd table just for mono).

Cerrot, Take it from me that upgrading the capacitors in the Rhea, which is essentially the difference between the original and the "Signature" versions, makes a world of difference. If you like your Rhea now, you will feel like you bought a new upscale phono stage after the upgrade is done. I replaced the coupling caps in my plain Jane Janus with Vcaps and the output caps with polystyrene film caps, and the difference is huge. (I did it myself, thus probably voiding the warranty but thus also saving a lot of money.) I listened to it all day yesterday; it's as least in the same league (now) with my best preamplifier, which costs many times more than the Janus. Incidentally, you might ask Aesthetix if they would use Vcaps in lieu of their usual choice for the Sig upgrade.

Hi Lewm, what is the value of those output caps in the Janus / Rhea ? Thanks

The other change in the signature is the size of output caps - went from 2.0 uF to 4.0uF. I concur with Lewm on the effect of caps on sound - it's substantial. The sig uses DynamiCap which isn't too hard to improve on.