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Time to blast off from Rhea

I made an impulse purchase 1.5 years ago of a Rhea phono preamp. I have a low output MC cartridge, and was actually saving for an AR Reference 2. The dealer sold me his demo for a good discount. Upon getting it home, with my smaller room and efficient speakers, heard the noise. Dealer not willing to take it back as it was a demo sale. I replaced all the tubes with a set from Jim Mcshane which made the situation tolerable, but with limited use, these tubes became intolerably noisy. Put in some vintage RCA tubes in the V1/V2 and it sounds great again. Is this just the price to pay for pure tube amplification of 56 db? Should I just sell it, and buy the Parasound JC3 and be done with it?
tennisdoc40
davt's avatar
davt
500 posts
 
though I no longer listen to vinyl I used to have a Herron phono stage, VTPH-2 and it was dead quiet. I did demo the Rhea and really preferred the Herron. You can have you cake and eat it to. I have heard the AR, forget which and it did not have much of a tube rush either.
jperry
2,446 posts
 
An all tube phono preamp amplifying a LOMC, and using high efficiency speakers is probably going to have some tube rush.

I have 2 suggestions for you. Talk to Andy at Vintage Tube Services, if you have not already done so; and try a SUT, maybe Bob's Devices, with your Rhea. It obliviously will not be all tube phono amplification any longer, but if you like the sound of the Rhea, it may be a good solution.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
No, I had a Rhea and decided that, while I loved the sound of tubes in a phono pre, the noise was too much. Then had a Manley Chinnok, which was superb and DEAD QUIET, then traded up for a Steelhead, which is even quieter, as quiet as any solid state component I've ever owned. So it can be done with tubes. By teh way I tried an AR3 phono pre and didn't think much of it, the gain was too low for me. Manley is the way to go in my mind for tubes phono stages. Plus the flexibility with gain and capacitance is second to none.
jperry
2,446 posts
 
I think the Herron and am sure the Audio Research phono stages use a FET front end for the additional MC gain.
analogluvr
859 posts
 
I, like Davt, directly compared the rhea signature to the Herron vtph2 and the Herron was quite a bit better. Quieter, more detailed and much more natural sounding. Also compared it to the zesto and it won out there for me too. Since purchasing the Herron I haven't even thought about phono stages, I just listen to it.
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