Regar Planar 6 Ania vs Ortofon 2M Bronze with a Devialet Expert Pro 220

[Out of Gum]

I have a Rega RP6, the predecessor of the Planar 6, with a Ortofon Quinet Black MC cartridge. It is nice. The reason i went with ortofon is that i could get a nice deal on it, it sounded good, ortofon has a good reputation and i had lost faith in Rega cartridges after bad experiences with their MM carts. However, the Ania’s appear to be very good according to all the reviews. Obviously the Rega turntables match with Rega carts. If you decide to go for Ortofon (possibly also other brands) then you have to use spacers for the arm to set the correct VTA / SRA as the Ortofon carts are larger / higher than Rega. I had to use 4 mm spacers but then you need to use a smaller counterweight (read more expensive) on the arm otherwise the dust lid cannot close.

The D220 Pro can amplify MM and MC carts. I use it with my above mentioned turntable. Please be aware that with low output voltage MC’s there is a hiss audible when the turntable is on but no music is playing and the volume is turned up. My Ortofon is 0.3 mV while the Ania’s are a bit higher (about 0.35 mV) so the hiss might be less with the Ania’s. With MM carts there is no hiss. The question is, is the hiss present when actually playing music. I cannot hear it but my OCD is not really convinced. For the hisss thing please look this up on this forum for more info / opinions. To avoid the hiss some people use a Step Up Tranformer (SUT) to amplify the output signal from the turntable before it goes to the D220.