Best Phono Stage within 2000 $

Feil,

Evidently, early production Rheas (including mine) commonly had noise issues. Within a year, Aesthetix had addressed the problem with a modified version. I'm local to the company, so I drove mine over and Jim White installed the mod at a nominal cost. Since then, it's been pretty much dead silence.

Marty

Marty,
I've only heard 2 and I think that was clear. I also added the "YMMV" caveat.

I'm not indicting all Rheas simply posting my experience.

For the record, there are many noisy tubed phono preamplifiers on the market.

Bill,

Just explaining that you're not the only one to encounter noisy Rheas...especially if someone happens to find one from those early production runs. I'm sure some of the later units are noisy, too. Just not as many of 'em.

Mine was much quieter after Jim did his thing. But your point is taken, especially since I was recommending buying used. Your caveat is certainly appropriate.

Marty

I heard the Rhea in a shootout with several other phonostage and neither of us was impressed - we pretty much unanimously felt it was very disappointing. It was slightly noisy too.

Some short comments:
- Sutherland Ph.D. (nice balance, good flow, quiet)
- McIntosh C1000 pre (excellent flow, not the best resolution)
- Canofer S (best overall balanced and very good soundstage resolution)
- Vacuumstate JLTI (finely detailed, very wide soundstage and excellent separation between instruments, lean)
- Rhea (slightly noisy, average soundstage resolution, forward upper midrange, loose bass)

Some more phonostages I have more experience with:
- Pass XOno (excellent resolution, best bass and extension, dynamic, slightly mechanical and not the most saturated tonal colors
- Wright WPP200C (good balance, average resolution)
- Trichord Dino (dry, good resolution)

Most of the above comparisons were done using the following combinations:
- Verdier, Da Vinci, ZYX Universe
- DPS 2, Schroeder No.2 Allaerts, Lyra Argo
- Scoutmaster, JMW9 Plus, Dynavector XX-2

Of course mostly my personal impression and YMMV.

Restock,

I'm surprised at your experience with the Rhea. I haven't heard any of the stages you mention, but I've directly compared the Rhea to:

ARC PH3se
Herron
Klyne
Aesthetix IO
Lehman Black Cube
BAT PK-10


Putting the Io aside for a moment,

IMHO, the Rhea easily outperformed each of the above in every way meaningful to me - other than noise (some of the comparisons were done before the unit was modded). It has beautiful "bloom" and tonality, imaging is the best I've heard (except for the Io) and deep bass is astonishingly good - FOR ME, better than all of the above - including the Io. After the mod to bring the Rhea to current spec, it's pretty much dead quiet - so I doubt noise is a meaningful issue now.

The Io sounds great, maybe marginally superior to the Rhea in stage depth, but FOR ME not significantly better than the Rhea in any other way. The Io had a darker character through the mid bass that I found less convincing, and it's also bigger and obviously much more expensive.

I also had a less controlled opportunity to compare my Rhea to an ARC Ref Phono and preferred the Rhea again, but there were enough uncontrolled variables to make this conclusion less reliable. Overall, IMHO it's the best sounding phono stage I've heard. Obviousy, YMdidV.

Other than the ARC Ref audition, I mainly used an Oracle, Graham 2.2, and Transfiguration Nightingale or Lyra Dorian (on a second wand) for my comparisons, although an Acoustic Solid Table with a modded RB-300 and Clearaudio cart were also employed from time to time.

Marty