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

Curio,

The Aesthetix Rhea is a great sounding phono stage. It offers unusual flexibility (inputs/outputs/loading, remote, etc) and is beautifully put together. Used prices have dipped below $2500 from time to time, and (with a bit of patience) you might find one at your price. I haven't auditioned quite as many phono stage as John, but I've tried quite a few (including several extremely expensive alternatives). IMHO, the Rhea sounded as good as any - YMMV.

BTW, my analog set-up is more complicated than most. I have multiple tables and use both SE and balanced connections, swap carts occasionally and prefer a single box solution of reasonable size. For this reason, I'd choose the Rhea over any other phono stage I've heard, including Aesthetix' own stab at the bleeding edge, the IO.

Good Luck

Marty

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

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