It's interesting to get people's take on the Herron vs. the Rhea. I have owned both for the past few years and have a different take than others who have compared them.
The Rhea eats tubes and eventually gets noisy. Since I'm replacing the tube set AGAIN, I dropped the unit off at Aesthetix for a once over to see if some other problem is causing this behavior (I live by the beach and it may be salt air which is a pain in the ass in so many regards). However,
With new tubes, the Rhea strikes me as AT LEAST comparable to the Herron in every way and strikingly superior in one key regard.
Although the Heron may be a bit tighter in the bottom end, the difference is marginal at most. OTOH, the "bloom" evident in the Rhea makes the Herron sound a bit dry and analytical (though less so than the ARC PH3 which I had in the system for a while). Note that this characteristic was evident with various cartridges through an ARC LS25 & Cary 300Bs into Merlins and Zingalis; also through a Joule LS, ARC VT130SE, Odyssey Stratos, and Cary 805s into Verity Parsifal Encores; as well as a few other combos tht have come and gone. In other words, it was consistently evident. Pretty much every visiting listener I can recall has concurred.
The Rhea is also far more flexible with multiple ins and outs and very expansive remote loading capability. The latter may be the key to its superior performance since cartridge matching is so critical.
When equipped with a new tube set, it is almost as quiet (i.e. dead silent) as the Herron. FWIW, the Herron is better than any other phono stage I've had in the system - and that is a very long list!
Regards,
Marty
