Aesthetix vs. Allnic vs. ARC ph7

I own the Herron and have owned the Rhea at the same time. I saw what I thought was a good deal and bought the Rhea out of curiosity. It took while to figure what tubes to put in it to get it to be transparent which it wasn’t with stock tubes. I found that the 6DJ8 was the key tube to obtain the voicing I was looking for with a Telefunken being the preferred tube. For the other tubes (v1-v4), I found two different combinations that worked well. The first is all Telefunken and the second is vintage EI’s in v1&v2 with GE black plate 5751’s in v3& v4. I liked what I heard enough to buy an Aesthetix IO. I sold off the Rhea once I had the IO but regret doing so. The Herron sits idle these days.

I also recommend the Herron; excellent piece indeed. I use NOS Tele's in all positions and they made a significant improvement in the transparency and detail of the unit.

Chuck

Sbrown, what tubes do you use in your Io?

Sbrown not really a fair comparison, the IO is a lot more money. Which Herron did you compare the rhea to? The op should also know that you could spend the cost of a used car just retubing a rhea with good nos tubes. They are known to be noisy and hard on tubes.

The comparisons mentioned above were made between the Herron and Rhea, not the IO. The Rhea was a standard, not the signature version. The point I was trying to make is the tube compliment plays an important role in what your get out of the Rhea, more than the Herron in my experience.

As for IO tubes, I use all Tele's for the 12AX7's and the 6DJ8. The 6SN7's are Tung Sol. In the power supply, there are Russian 12AX7's and until recently Mullard EL34 XF2's. The Mullards have gone south so have been experimenting with different tubes in that position. One other thing to note about the IO. Mine started life as a signature. I replaced the coupling caps with Duelund Cast coppers and the loading resistors with Nude Vishays. I still need to deal with the output caps which are still stock.