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What Are The Differences Between The Vandenhul Cartridge Families

It seems like VDH had an abrupt departure in his cartridge designs awhile back. There were the metal body ones like the Grasshopper and other types, and then all of a sudden the open architecture of the Stradivarius cartridges appeared. Seems like the specifications also indicate a fundamental shift in design philosophy also. Yet I believe there is one hold over, or at least the silver and gold versions of the Grasshopper stayed around longer than the other ones.

 

Does anyone know what changed, and what the corresponding differences in presentation might be? I was looking at 3 of the Frog series cartridges available here on Audiogon.

neonknight

Showing 1 response by mikelavigne

mikelavigne
2,148 posts
 

i’ve owned 10 vdH Colibri ’type’ van den Huls over the years. starting in 2001. owned 7 back in 2001--2011, then another 3 in 2016-2018.

my early group did have a consistent nomenclature using symbols for body type, body material, and winding material. the later ’Stratovarius’ group just used names.

agree with Fremer that the vdH’s have the most inconsistent build quality of any cartridge. so reviews mean little, since they are not consistent. further; the alignment of the body, magnet structure, and cantilever is rarely correct and each cantilever is a different length. which can many times cause problems due to the clearance between the magnets and the pressing surface with the shorter cantilever units, so they pick up dust.

so it’s a train wreck to a degree. yet you are rewarded with special very lively exciting sound, if your system can handle it. the Colibri type vdH’s are a pain, but can be amazing. and they are cheap to get fixed, but the fix is not always correct.

bottom line----i owned 10 of these beasts for a reason. they can touch your heart.

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