Should I buy a VDH Colibri or Black Beauty?

In my similar inquiry a few months ago, I found that many of the guys who post here and who have the most experience with a wide variety of high end cartridges were in awe of the Colibri, but all said that it was a cartridge that will reveal the "truth", good or bad, of the quality of the recording. The essence of their collective opinions was that if the LP is well recorded, the Colibri will give a uniquely thrilling experience. I bought a used one but have not had a chance to listen yet. However, I am rather surprised that so far none of the Colibri admirers have responded to your question. I have no feel for the sound of the Black Beauty, sorry to say.

I meant to add that if you are looking at a used Colibri, especially one that has recently been "readjusted" by van den Hul, then any fears of manufacturing defects should be ameliorated. Someone else has done the beta testing for you. Therefore the putative problems cited by Audiofeil and Fmpmd, whether they were the fault of the distributor or of van den Hul, would not apply.

They vary from unit to unit in internal resistance. Therefore, a 47K ohm load would be good for some and not for others. Mine has a relatively high internal resistance. (Cannot recall the number.) vdH recommends "200 ohms to 47K ohms" for the load resistance. JimJoyce, any MC or MM cartridge will have an internal resistance or impedance way below 47K, so I was not sure exactly what you were getting at.

Fmpnd, After I posted about VTA, etc, I felt silly, because it is obvious that someone as knowledgable as yourself would know enough to play with all the variables. I guess the only point of contention is that you seem to attribute your dissatisfaction to mistracking, whereas Rudy and I think others say that mistracking did not occur in their rigs, even though their experiences in terms of listening were not far different from yours. I am away from home at a scientific meeting, so I can do nothing for a few more days to test my own sample. But I am anxious to do so, once I solve the problem with fitting it into the Triplanar headshell. It seems I may have a shim that will permit it.

Fmpnd, Sounds like your (negative) experience was pretty convincing to you. The only explanation that might exonerate the Colibri is that there was some suboptimal interaction between your tonearm and the cartridge, a la Raul's point. My Colibri is supposed to work best with tonearms of 8 to 14gm effective mass. Since my Triplanar is 11gm eff mass, the match should be a good one. Lets hope that I have a better experience than you did. I do know that I don't have to worry about having a bad sample, because I bought my Colibri from an honorable member of A'gon who had used it in his superb system and found no fault.

Re the sibilance question, besides playing with VTF, did you also vary VTA and the load resistor in your phono stage? Either of those settings can also exaggerate any tendency toward sibilance that often is intrinsic to the LP per se.

Lutenist, The tonearm "effective mass" is a mathematical entity that describes the average of the mass in relation to the square of its distance from the stylus tip. (I am writing this without access to the actual formula, so I may be leaving out some parameter.) In other words, if you put a weight right on top of the headshell, pretty much that weight will add arithmetically to the effective mass. On the other hand, if you put a weight back at the pivot point, the change in effective mass will be reduced by a quantity related to the square of the length of your tonearm from pivot to stylus. Ask the maker of your tonearm for its effective mass spec. Especially for an air bearing tonearm, the effective mass will be very different for the vertical and lateral planes. Mostly, you want to worry about the effective mass in the vertical plane as regards cartridge matching. If I have misspoken here in any important way, please anyone do not hesitate to correct me, but I think this is correct.

I am surprised that no one has pointed out that there really is NO one Colibri. Each one seems to have been custom made with variations in cartridge body construction, wire used for windings, voltage output, internal impedance, etc, etc. So none of us is talking about the same product. Also, Gregm, did you really mean to say "azimuth"? Azimuth should have zero effect on hf response, let alone to cure "anomalies", such as sibilance.