Time to blast off from Rhea

DON'T buy a JC3 I had it and it was noisier than a tubed unit I finally went with. (NVO)

I also cast a vote for the Herron VTPH-2 . A great phono preAmp. Also Keith Herron is one of the best fellows in Audio and will give wonderful service if needed.

The Rhea is noisy. No doubt about it. However, in my opinion, you can quiet it down substantially with the right tube complement and as reward, you get a unit that punches way above its price class in musical expressiveness, tone density, instrumental texture, palpability, and 3D realism. No, I haven't compared it to any other tubed units in my system, but that is the point, neither have I felt the need or desire to. The Rhea has created such a wonderful synergy with my system, the balance of which is entirely SS, that I would be loathe to abandon it. Were I inclined to invest more money into my system, it would be in the area of room treatment, rather than switching out components. My advice is that you audition in your system anything you might consider replacing the Rhea with before "blasting it off", as you may come to discover that the lose of noise came at a greater sacrifice than you expected.

If you do not want to deal with tubes in your phono preamp, I recommend you look for a Klyne phono preamp instead of the Parasound JC-3. Superb build quality and very quiet.

If you want a John Curl design you could look for a Vendetta phono preamp. They sell fast and they are not cheap. It may take a long time to find one.

I'm very happy with the rest of my system. Spectral electonics and cables into Martin Logan Montis speakers.
It was only after the introduction of the LOMC cartridge that I needed a separate phono section since the Spectral preamp had limited gain.
I have demo'd the JC3 which is dead quiet and detailed. As to the Manley Chinook, it basically is a solid state amp, with two 6922 tubes in it for show. I'll give it a posiitive for quiet but for 2200, you can get a better solid state phono section.