Anyone have or heard the Whest PS.20

I bought this Whest PS.20 without listening to it after reading Michael Fremer's good review. I was going to get rid of it if its sound was mediocre.

Much to my surprise, it is a very neutral sounding phonostage. It has excellent dynamics, very good images and soundstage. Top to bottom is well balanced. Plenty of gain and ultra quiet. Definitely it is better than my CAT MK III's built in phonostage.

I also compared the Whest with Aesthetix Rhea that my friend owns. Offering a great variety of features, the Rhea sounds sweet and rich. The Whest is not dull or bright, and not rich or bland either. But yet it is lightning fast, dynamic, and extremely quiet. It is quieter than the Rhea. Its bass is a bit tighter and transient quicker than the Rhea. If you want rich sound and extra features, the Rhea will be your ticket. But at $2,600, the Whest is quite impressive. I am keeping it. Don't let the look and size of the Whest PS.20 fool you. It is a stealth performer.

I too own the Whest PS.20, however it is boxed up along with the rest of my system as our new home is under construction.

However, fellow audiogoner Kehut was kind enough to invite myself with TT over to his pad. I know he has a blurb and some photos on his website about the afternoon.

For the turntable, phono stage, & cartridge all being new with about 50 hours on it, as well as the power cord, it sounded suprisingly good.

I will hopefully post much more once I get my system back out of boxes and set up...

There was a 3 month old Whest PS .20 listed on Audiogon yesterday that I snatched up. I had targeted this phono stage for some time, but the retail cost was out of my budget. I had already placed an order for a Decware SP-1.5 and now I'll have the Whest coming into my system as well. On top of it all I have a deal for a Hagerman Trumpet pending. I'll be comparing all three in my system by the end of the month I suspect.

Reb1208 - I was told by the dealer I bought this from that the Whest is 58db on the MC side. I asked specifically because I read the Fremer review where the Whest was supposed to be user adjustable between 58db and 72db, but it is not. My cartridge is a Benz M2 (M0.9) wood body with 0.8mV so I agree with you that if the gain is 72db that would be extremely high. Can you tell me where you found this information? I'll like to research this further.

Clio09,
My Whest is specified at 65db for the MC and it was manufactured in May 2005.

For brand new Whest, you can order it at a specified gain for MC. For a used one, I guess you need to go through a dealer. The dealer would either adjust the gain himself for you or send it to Music Hall or one of its authorized contractor. I believe Music Hall has one contractor in Southern California.

Audiolui,

I received a response from James Henriot as follows:

"The gain on your unit for MC is set at 58dB using a 100R load. This has been recently changed to 65dB as most MC users use low output MCs. Michael Fremer asked for a 72dB unit and then said it comes as standard."

I am not sure how he knows mine is 58db other than the fact he may know what units this dealer had stocked. In any case I am going to get the serial number and have it researched by James. He seems very nice to deal with.