Rhea Noise

I have not heard every phono stage out there, but I've directly compared the ARC, Herron, and Rhea in my system. Before switching out the original tube set, the Rhea was clearly noisier. After the tubes were replaced, noise levels were close enough to my ear as to be inconsequential. The Rhea is, however, my favorite performer of the bunch by a long shot and is far more flexible/ergonomic, to boot.

One good diagnostic test is to listen for channel specific noise levels and then swap tubes left to right. In my case, the difference was clear (although both channels were always somewhat noisier than I liked). A new tube set reduced overall noise levels and brought the two channels much closer in line with each other.

So, once again, I'd start by switching out the tubes.

I also experienced too much noise from the rhea .I found the Cary ph302 with fixed gain(54) and shielding to be much quieter.I am using it with the benz-micro ruby 3h mc catridge.This is a very musical combo.

Uppermidfi,
How can a noisy phonostage be very good?
To me it's an unfinished product where manufacturers had reached a desired performance but haven't reached a desired stability.

To help this post to be developed further, did anyone get satisfaction with Rhea in both performance and stability(i.e. noise)?

Xagwell,
I see now you're talking senses!
PH-3 has J-Fet input stage and fixed gain ~54dB
Never compared them neither heard or used Rhea but valuewise and qualitywise AudioResearch is way to go.
More expencive Reference very and very often drives some folks back to PH3 for the same reason as you describe with Rhea.
Hence, if you want more gain than PH3 or let's say >50dB, I would advise you to look arround SS stages such as Pass X-ono...

The company will replace noisy tubes. There has been a problem with some tubes being noisy with Aesthetix.