Rhea Signature vs. ARC PH-7

I used to own an ARC PH-7 for several months. My friend brought over a RHEA Signature to compare with the PH-7. I liked the RHEA better in my system. Then I borrowed an ASR Basis Exclusive to compare with the PH-7. I liked the ASR the most. I ranked these three phonostages as follow: 1-ASR, 2-Rhea Signature, and 3-PH7. Again, it is my opinion based upon my system.

I recently listened to the ARC REF2 SE in a friend's system and it is very good. So if you have the budget, I would highly recommend the ARC REF2 SE.

If you consider Dynavector XV-1s, one consideration would be that ARC PH series has gain of only 58 dB. I think that is really a bit too low for XV-1s. I probably would use ARC PH series with cartridges with at least 0.4 mV. Some preamp sounds find when you crank up a bit more volume than usual but some preamp does not sound so good when volume has be cranked up high. I don't have any experience with Asthetix preamp so I don't know how that would go. For XV-1s, I would prefer something with at least 64-66 dB of gain or higher personally.

Regarding JMW arm, I used XV-1s with the full 10.5 arm for quite awhile and had very good result but XV-1s did sound somewhat better, may be different would be a better word with Graham arm but it was also a different turntable so who knows. However, the new one piece 3D printer VPI arm that is coming sounds very interesting and initially feedback sound promising so it might be something worth waiting for.

Pls explain why the JMW 9 Sig is not up to snuff for the XV-1S.

Handymann,

This thread might provide you with an answer to your question.

The Aesthetix Rhea does have the gain up to 70 db, but it is too noisy to use above 56 db of gain. 56 db from tubes is quite large. It is unusual that AR equiptment, that gets more tube amplification as you go up the food chain stays quiet. Perhaps some of the gain is from the accompanying Solid state circuits. Fortunately, I can get 1/3 my gain from a Spectral SS preamp that is dead silen.t