Rhea vs Pass XP-15

Hi Peter.

I used to own the Xono and it is a great phono.

Differences between xp15 and xp25 was more realistic and musically satisfying in every music cliche, depth, soundstage, extension, focus etc a c.
Most obvious is the sense of urgency or vibrancy when music is played, but never sounding hurried or artificial. A sense of ease and control at the same time.

Only downside is the xpo-25's susceptibility to power supply interference. My cj GAT with its large pose transformer made life difficult with him coming through the speakers. With some component moves and the xp25 PS being as far away from the control unit as the cable is has given me silence.

It has been too long since I had the Xono for meaningful comparison vs xp-15 however from memory that ease of delivery seemed to be there with the Xono.

If I was in your shoes and looking at upgrading your phono worth Pass, the xp-25 would be the only option to consider.

Thanks Downunder. I appreciate your perspective. The XP-25 and XP-30 are certainly on my list for the next two major upgrades to my system. It may be a while though. It's costing more and more to go up to the next level.

I now have the power supplies for both the XOno and XP-20 on the same shelves as the control units and I've been thinking about moving them to the bottom shelf and having both control units on the top shelf. If I hear a difference, I'll report back.

Well, I did move the power supplies down so both are on the middle shelf and both control units are on the top shelf. I measured the noise coming out of the speakers at full volume with my Radio Shack SPL. Tweeter 54 dB and midrange 65 dB before the switch. After the switch the noise at the tweeter was 61 dB and midrange 72 dB. So clearly the switch was bad with the power supplies under the control units even though they were on different shelves. The noise was 7 dB or so lower with the power supplies off to the side on the same shelf and not beneath on a lower shelf.

See system photo of rack for details. So, I agree with Downunder that these units are sensitive to location and distance from the power supplies. At normal listening levels, I hear no noise at the listening seat and almost none at the speaker drivers.

Hi Peter

I have my xp-25 and xp-20 power supplies like you off to the side. Nice and quiet.