Rega Planar 3 : Heavily upgraded yet produces a sound that I don't like

Problem solved ! Well... most of it ...

I decided to start the Rondo Red setup from scratch. All I knew is that the dealer who sold it to me used a Baerwald protractor for Rega to set the Cartridge alignment. I read that a Stevenson protractor for Rega can be better. I used the Stevenson and bingo ! Now there is a nice Bass, drums have a decent attack and sound stage is much much better. I ended up spending 8 hours yesterday listening to my good old vinyls.

The sound though, is still on the bright side. When Barbra Streisand sings "Memories", at timing 01:38, sound is too bright:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWoQW-b6Ph8
In a climax part of a symphony wind instruments sound a bit too bright.
So at this point I finally end up enjoying my P3 TT but sound is a bit inferior to my Digital department (Linn Karik transport + Carry Exciter D/A) .

Bare in mind that my Linn Linto phonostage is MC only so I'm afraid MM's are not an option for me.
To resolve the brightness issue, I have to buy a better MC cartridge like the Rega Annia for 800$ or similar.
Anybody here tried the Annia MC ? Any recommendations for a decent MC ?

Unfortunately @triskadecaphobic, it is likely not your cartridge that needs to go, it is your Linn phonostage that needs to go. It has a non adjustable 150 ohm loading in parallel with a fairly useless 4.7nF capacitor (which does almost nothing except short our very high frequency noise). If you buy a different cartridge you could very well end up at exactly the same place.

This is not an advocacy of extremephono products, but it is a good little article on cartridge loading. You can see how even for an MC cartridge, the frequency response can be affected by loading. This will vary cartridge to cartridge and I feel these graphs are more the extreme:

http://www.extremephono.com/Loading.htm

In the past I bought these pass-through RCA units with a little circuit board in them you could put parts on them. Can't remember where I got them, but that is an option.  The Linn has fairly input impedance so these could be used as an adjunct.

@triskadecaphobic,   ran out of time to modify last post. You can obviously just wire something with an RCA female and male two if you are good with a soldering iron. We are only talking an additional resistor and capacitor between the two contacts. Not sure how many you are with a soldering iron.


There are also these, but I would prefer to be able to run resistance and capacitance. It would give you more flexibility.  http://www.akamaiaudio.it/turntable-parts/251-load-rca-plug-for-ph7-and-ph11.html

I found a relevant thread I started a few years ago. The tech specs I listed there show no mismatch:

"Rondo red:
Recommended load impedance 10-200 Ohm

Linn linto:
The input impedance measured 165 ohms at 1kHz

http://www.ortofon.com/products/cartridges/moving-coil/mc-rondo-series/mc-rondo-red

Compatible impedance and best impedance for optimal frequency response are not the same thing.

Did you follow the link I provided on optimal impedance matching?