I had the Rega Planar P6 with the Ania MC cartridge that never came to life creating an emotional connection for me in my system. I sold it and bought a VPI Scout with an Ortofon 2M Blue. Sounded okay but again, it never blossomed in my system. So I sold the VPI and bought a Mofi Studiodeck with their standard MM cartridge, and voila, the magic was there! I can’t explain why the least expensive of the three had the optimum synergy with my preamp and the rest of the system. I just know what I hear. The other two just sounded constrained by comparison. Lesson learned, it’s not necessarily a function of how much you spend. Sometimes less is more.
I want to move from Rega Planar 6 help me to pick a new turntable
Hi Folks,
About couple of years ago I got Rega Planar 6. Now since I got more experience with turntables and know what I want from it I am looking for a new one.
There is nothing wrong with Rega Planar 6. In fact I enjoy it and if asked I would recommend it to other people. As long as they don't care about VTA and Azimuth. And this is the main reason I want a different table. I somewhat agree that VTA is not a huge deal and on Rega you can get a spacers, not too convenient, but not too bad either. But Azimuth for me is crucial. My experience with lots of different cartridges - most of them don't have stylus perfectly perpendicular to the surface.
I don't necessarily looking to upgrade to something much better. I want a turntable that has adjustable Azimuth. I may consider an upgrade but want to stay below 3k.
Also I don't want anything with suspension, my floors are too resonant and believe me my kids could jump upstairs so hard I sometimes have recessed ceiling lights falling off :) And for some reason I don't care about ProJect.
There is also a limiting factor of availability. Because of COVID production stopped and wait times are months in some cases.
So far I have identified the following options (based on my preferences and availability).
Technics SL-1200GR - $1.7k
VPI Prime Scout - $1.9k
EAT B-Sharp - $2k
VPI - Scout 21 - $2.8k
Music Hall - MMF-9.3 Turntable - $2.7k
EAT C-Major - $3k
The only table outside of my price range that I might consider is Technics SL-1200G for which I've heard extremely good reviews.
The rest of the system
Cartridge - temporarily DL-103. (before I had Ortofon Quintet Black S and Audio-Technica ART9XA)
Phono stage - Parasound zphono xrm
Amp - PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium
Speakers - Martin Logan Motion 60XTi
Thanks,
Alex