Best Phono Stage within 2000 $

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

Marty's and Restock's findings just goes to show that one man's ceiling is another man's floor.

(Credit to Paul Simon.)

I find it interesting no one has mentioned the Heed Quasar.

Klyne 7 Phono.

Really good (MUCH better than Tron 7, all Whests, Aesthetix Rhea etc.)

Curio,
I might suggest giving the GCPH a try. With a 30 day no risk trial period I doubt there's much to lose. You might be surprised how good it is. I've had one for three years now and will upgrade at some point but I have a lot of trouble finding any Phono stage that looks like it would potentially outperform it and has anywhere near the flexibity. I guess that says something. I bought it with the intention of upgrading to something else and can't bring myself to do it. Mine has now been upgraded by the way. It's not just a money thing, I've spent plenty elsewhere in my system(may post my system with photos soon), I'm just not sure if this is an area where spending more would be worth it.