Van Den Hul what is the best cart ?

VanDenHul has a reputation of poor quality control. You should consider Lyra, Ortofon, ....even if you can find a used Benz LPS in good shape.

I dont think any VDH will beat the Zyx 4D unless you are looking for a change in voicing.

Keep the cartridge and buy more vinyl.

...unless you were looking for a higher output cart. May I suggest that you share your reasons for looking at a VdH, and your phonostage.

Is the Colibri a match for your tonearm? It does not match all arms because of the shorter cantliver. Van den hul states the gold wiring is the best but admits the gold coils lose musicality faster over time compared to copper and silver. Read as much on line before buying.VDH does make stylus for other brands like sumiko and other manufacturers.

lot of people say bad reviews about VDH, but did you ever get one in your life ?
Some say that colibri is the very best cartridge, and some say it's the worst, but who did really compare ?

I bought a colibri xgp and it's pretty phenomenal, came from a Lyra Delos. For instrumental music the colibri is unbeatable but for rock and vocals the Delos is more satisfying. The colibri tends to highlight the least bit of sibilance.

I like A.J. but the quality control could be better.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hrlivjikl3okc74/2015-04-15%2011.54.29.jpg?dl=0

A genius but maybe a slob too.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/urua9igv05u04vq/VdH%20workbench.jpg?dl=0

IMO, there is nothing at all to be worried about with a VdH cartridge per se. However, the problem in recommending one vs another is that there are SO many variations on any of the basic themes. For example, there are at least a half dozen or more variations of the Colibri alone. And since they are hand made one might expect sample to sample variation, to add to the confusion. I owned a low output copper coil Colibri, and it was very nice, for what that's worth. In general, I have consistently found that high output MCs do not sound as good as the low output version of that same cartridge, if that helps. For example, HO version of ZYX UNI not as good as LO version. Sometimes, you just have to take a shot in the dark and try something for yourself. Reviews in commercial publications are utterly useless, too.

There seems to be a misconception in regards to the VdH stylus. VdH only designed the stylus. Fitz Gyger is the manufacture of that design. That's why it is referred to the FG/1, FG/II, and the 'S'.
BTW: The FG/II and the 'S' are not 'improvements' to the FG/I. The latter designs were only to facilitate scrap reduction for the manufacturing process.
Regards,

I am pleased with the sound of my Colibri xgp lightweight version .38mv on my VPI 12.7 arm. Harry @ VPI told me that it is one of the few arms that are a good match with the lightweight. Can't say that I've had tons of carts on my table, but it is head & shoulders above the ZYX Airy 3 and Allnic Puritas carts that I've used in the same rig. IME, vdh provides excellent value and very high end performance.

The comment about sibilance is a system matching issue. This one of the most revealing treble carts and some phono stages & cables are not transparent enough to let the beauty of the vdh treble shine. With a well matched system, solo violin etc. will be hard to beat. The Colibri is also dynamically explosive when the music calls for it, with transient speed that makes drums very lifelike.

On the downside, it's not very forgiving of beatup LPs even if well-cleaned.

The comment about "short cantilever" confuses me, because at least with the lightweight version, their is not much of a body per se, and it looks like a long cantilever to me. I'm always careful because it looks like the cantilever is hanging further down than on some other carts. Cheers,
Spencer

Andy some cartridges and arms together do not have synergy,maybe the people who were wowed by the colibri had the synergy and maybe those who were not wowed did not. There is not one cartridge that I know that has synergy with every arm built.
As far as quality control I have heard of problems and it happens,buy from someone who will exchange it no questions asked or refund your money.

The main problem is not quality control, the problem is to buy a cartridge and be sure that if you've got a problem the manufacturer will really do the best to resolve your problem and it's not the case at all with some manufacturers. It's always easy for them to say that you are not able to adjust your cartridge or your tonearm is not the good one.
I had a problem with a high end cartridge that couldn't read more than 50µm, the manufacturer didn't make anything for me.... and is was not a hand made Van Den Hul

As I said Google on the colibri it is a fantastic
cartridge,it's fast,it's dynamic,it throws a huge
Soundstage but will it have synergy with your
tonearm? I too thought of buying one,lord knows
they still sell in Europe for 5000.00 but here on
Audiogon there are some real steals listed. Your
right there are so many versions of this
cartridge so do your self a favor and gather as
much information on which one is a better fit for
your tonearm. Which one better suits your phono
stage HOMC or LOMC. I settled for a HOMC Sumiko
Talisman Virtuoso that was fitted with a VDH
stylus and titanium cantliver and I'm happy with
my choice. It mated well with my tonearm and my
Whest Titan Pro phono pre amp.

Van den Hul offers free inspection of the cart after the first 100-150 hours, which is very useful. Expect optimization only with no downsides. Best vdH cart for me is Condor, but depending on sound preferences and system signature, you might prefer other model - body, texture, resolution, etc.

I have 2 Colibris, one copper coil, another platinum coil, both with the plastic bodies. My experience mirrored many of the comments in this thread.

Sound. The Colibri sounds very fast and airy, it has the best treble of all the cartridges that I have tried in my system. However, the bass and mid-bass is on the lean side. If I understand correctly, VDH used the SME V as the reference tonearm when he designed the Colibri. While I have never tried this combo myself, I believe it has the synergy.

Reliability. I have to agree the Colibri is more fragile than most cartridges. I have sent mine back for repair a couple of times. The interesting thing is that it came back with a different length cantilever everytime! I have seen at least 3 different cantilever lengths. The shortest one was so short that the cartridge bottom was no more than 1mm (IIRC) from the LP surface.

Output. My platinum coil Colibri is listed as 0.25mv from the factory, but with the same gain and volume setting, the volume is much lower than a Denon 103R, which lead me to believe its output is probably closer to (or lower than) 0.2mv than 0.25mv.

From what I heard is that the VDH the Crimson is one of the best cartridges that you can buy.

I have heard, not own some expensive carts like VIP gold finger, VDH Colibri, Koestu, Ikeda, Lyra. But the more I hear them the more I think that after a certain price point. Maybe 4000 or lower all carts sound good great and it's more a matter of taste then quality.

I use a Dynavector Te Kaitora Rua.

Thekong....true enough. I went from a Benz LPS to an Ortofon Winfield. There are things that the LPS did that was better than the Winfield and v/v. I don't know how one buys a cartridge...you just can't listen to these things to know if that cartridge has the abilities that one likes for his/her own satisfaction. Mainly I suspect its a crapshoot.

It's "Winfeld".
You make the same mistake in every post.

Well if it's true that the SME V was the reference tonearm for The Colibri then it stands to reason it would be the perfect match for Oracle turntables.

I went from a Benz LPS to an Ortofon Winfield

Hi Stringreen, I also went from the Colibri to the Ortofon A90. While I prefer the A90 overall, I still miss the treble of the Colibri. I have recently acquired the A95, but not yet have time to set it up.

I have a gold coil Colibri on my Aries 3 with the 10.5i arm and I think it is a magic combination. I have never heard a sibilance problem. The mids and highs are magic, and I have no complaints about the bass but do not listen to much really heavy bass music. However my RL mastered LZ II sounds great with very pronounced bass. Also VdH is making these with longer cantilevers these days.

However, obviously different systems will provide different presentations. Also, I have never heard a Zyz cart so cannot comment on how the Colibri will stack up against that.

 Just an update to my earlier  post regarding my colibri.  The sibilance I was experiencing was mostly a break-in issue and partly an arm compatibility issue.  The compliance is very high so you need a very light effective mass arm to have the right resonance.   Break-in took quite a few hours, I would estimate around 50.  Right now I am using an SME series 3 that has been rewired with a continuous run eliminating all the joints.  Even though the SME is a very cheap arm it's a great match due to its very low effective mass. I find it to be a very revealing cartridge with great highs and powerful base. It is very Neutral and plays exactly what is on the recording. I have only heard one cartridge that I thought definitively beat it and that is the Goldfinger. Other high-end cartridges may do one thing slightly better but it is give-and-take.

I heard a Goldfinger and it was not my favorite.

Late comer here:

Sibilance in my experience with VDH carts is usually VTA setting not correct.  They are quite sensitive to proper VTA and alignment, granted the arm is right for the cart to begin with.   

''Names'' and reference. Vienna, Wenen, Bec and Wien are different

names with the same reference. Logic ''says'' whatever is true about

Wien is also true about Vienna , Wenen (Dutch) , Bec (Serbo-Crotian) . 

Van den Hul seems to refer to the person Van den Hul. This however

does not mean that all cartridges ''Van den Hul'' are made by him.

So how can one know if an ''Van den Hul'' is made by him or by one

of his employee? The circumstance that so many are offered second

hand may suggest  some answer. 

Nandric, by his age VDH's hands shake just as bad as mine or worse not to mention failing eye sight. I would rather have mine built by a well trained 24 year old person who can get pregnant (gender neutral according to big pharma and I am not kidding!)

@sbank, a 12" VPI has to be the worse tonearm for that cartridge, ask rualiruegas. It is too heavy, too long and a unipivot. That cartridge belongs in an SME V or a Schroder CB with the phenolic plate. Would be a big improvement in tracking and sound. 

@lewm , I would swap low output for low Impedance. You still thinking of getting that BMC phono stage or did that go the wayside?

mijostyn, capability seems not to be ''age dependant''. According to my

information Van den Hul is still ''going strong'' . Think also about ''late''

Ikeda and Takeda. You seem to be an master in wrong assertions.

Psychology is not relevant for ''truth values''. Statements of beliefs

or hopes  ''resist logical analysis''. 

Newbie here. I have a VPI Prime Signature w/ a JMW 10 #D Unipivot I purchased over the summer. Started w/ a DynaV 20x2 and didn't care for that and found a VDH Crimson w/ 200 hours (and sent back to VDH for checkup) and that was a revelation. Wow. 

Sadly, it only took me 3 weeks to snap off the cant and had to send it back to AJ. I didn't know how long it would take so I bought a HANA Red for the wait. After that was broken in - wow again. I don't have the ear many of you have for nuances and they sound very close to me. Had the Red on for about 75 hours or so and somehow it got loosened up so I just put the Crimson on last w/e to see if I could tell a difference. A little but not much and it wasn't broken. The Crimson now has about 20 hours on it and even w/ that little bit it is now sounding the same as the HANA - mostly. I think for me to really be able to tell the difference I will need to let the Crimson fully breakin (whenever that is) and then go back to the Red again.

I have no idea which one I will use "full-time" and which one will be the "backup". I'll probably buy another arm at some point so I can switch back and forth quickly. 

Btw, the service from VDH was great and pricing was reasonable.

i like the refresh of this thread…so many excellent contributors who have owned top flight carts make for balanced viewpoints….. Updates ?….. 

i am a long cantilever robot with depleted coils… 

jim

@laynes You might want to consider posting your system in the Audiogon Systems section. Upon reading your posts, the first thing that struck me is that the DV20X2 is one of Dyna's more most models, and like 25% of the cost of the other two. Yes, both the Crimson & Hana should be in a different league altogether. However, you should be hearing a fair bit distinguishing them from each other. That leads me to ask about the rest of the system...

When I owned a JWM arm (12.6, 12.7 on a TNT6-HR), I found it to be very sensitive to VTA/SRA and was constantly adjusting it on almost every album. Gain and loading with those two carts may not have been optimized for one of them. The devil's in those details. If you share more info, someone here may provide you with a golden nugget or two that can bring out the best and the more nuanced differences between those two fine carts. Cheers,

Spencer

@nandric , how many people have you watched age over a lifetime? Not very many obviously. As JFK relates, "Old age is a train wreck." Nobody, and I mean nobody has the manual dexterity at age 80 that they had at age 24. Some are better than others. "Going Strong" for most 80 year olds is still breathing. Yes, I know some 80 year olds that are still running 1/2 marathons and I had one patient who at 84 could still dead lift 480 lb but these are the rare exceptions. The 84 year old had stopped working on his own cars because he was having difficulty with his eye site. 

Old age is something you have to cover up with humor and the sensibility to retreat from activities that have become to dangerous either physically or legally whilst giving up as little ground along the way as possible. You can't think about it, too depressing, just as bad is painting it as something it is not.

One thing I can say about you nandric is your mental capabilities are still going strong. Keep eating those jellyfish pills:)

@sbank , Trust me on this one. You have to get rid of those arms. The quality of your life will increase 10 fold. Angels will sing in your ears and throw petals at your feet. You might even get a massage (I would say with a "happy ending" but then the post will get pulled.) 

@mijostyn What's your problem...today? Don't imply I'm recommending those arms or anything else. 

Maybe if you helped the guy with a question figure out what's going on with what he's got instead of pushing your fav stuff, it might be a nice change for you and everyone else.

Merry Freakin' Christmas! 

Cheers,

Spencer

mijostin, The problem is that  everybody like to generalize. For this aim

the universal quantifier  ''all'' is used. The formula is

For all x Fx&Gx .  But if one x does not satisfy conditions F and G the

whole statement is not true.The most people have no idea what ''all''

means. It is not a name which can be put in ''subject place'' in an

sentence.

Dramatic  example is decision of European commission to decalar that

''all immigrants  have the right to asylum procedure'' .

This means that they had no idea what ''all'' means.That is to say ''how

many those all are'', The kids from 12 and on from all countries in

Africa and middle East who know in advice that they will never get asylum 

come to Europe wihch was their primary intention. Without any asylum

procedure they moved (walking) to the North Europe. Some countries

were willing to accept limited number , some not a single one. The result

is that all countries have much more ''illegal immigrants'' than ''legal'' .

Legal are those who are in asylum procedure. The illegal kind can't

be returned to their country because they countries refuse to accept

them. This whole drama is caused because the members of European

commission had no idea what ''ALL'' means.

@sbank , I'm not pushing anything other than I honestly and really think you can increase the performance of your system by getting away from those arms. It has nothing to do with ANYTHING other than that. If I did not have any respect for you I I would not have mentioned it in the first place. I am quite happy to let several individuals stew in mediocrity but not you. You REALLY deserve better arms and there are many to chose from. Kuzma, Triplanar, Reed, Schroder and now Transrotor all make excellent arms. Going to any of them will improve your bass detail immensely. I have no irons in this fire other than my own reputation which around here is garbage anyway.  

well at least it’s not ALL garbage…hope springs eternal Mijo.

i am an all or nothing robot

@mijostyn You'll be okay. Time for a happy record and a cocktail. 

No need to worry. I sold my JMW arm and the TNT6-HR that it rode on about 7 years ago. Cheers,

Spencer