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Phono-Pre Amps & Cartridges Welcome to the Dark Side! |
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#1
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Van den Hul Colibri XGP
Today was the day to swap out my excellent Benz Micro LP for a Van den Hul Colibri XGP. The Colibri is the top of the line VDH and this one had gold coils and a pretty low 0.22mV output, although I was pretty confident the AR Ref 2 Phono could handle it.
I hadn't moved by Benz for quite a while and had almost forgotten how to adjust the SMEV. Luckily a quick refresher of the instruction booklet helped re-ignite the grey matter. The last time I heard a Colibri was when it was attached to a Cobra tonearm on the Continuum Caliburn tt playing through a MBL reference system. To say it sounded incredible would be a disservice. After the necessary parameters were set, out came the Thorens Anniversary LP and Rickie Lee Jones. Wow! Even though it is brand new the difference was not slight. The VDH preferred a slightly lower loading than the benz but the clarity and energy for which this cartridge is known was amazing. It was as though a veil had been lifted and the music was even more lifelike, verging on feeling like a live concert. I will have to play around with the settings a bit but so far this seems to be a winner combo. howie The Colibri in its box AJ VDH's typical scribbles on the box The Colibri which has no stylus guard. Be very careful! Detailed look Gettings its first run |
#2
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Killer!
Enjoy!!! Luckily, I am NOT into TT that much. Or else my pocket will ...
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Turntable: SME Synergy All-In-One Thorens TD147 Jubilee + Plixir LPS + Ortofon A-Mono DS Audio ION 1 SACD/DAC: Luxman D-10x Server: Roon Nucleus+ 8TB SSD + Plixir Elite LPS Bluray: ModWright Oppo UDP205 Amps: Air Tight ATC-5/ATM300R/ATH-3 Speakers: Avantgarde Uno XD Piano Black/Stealth Grey Cables & Interconnects: Audience Au24 SX Series Power Conditioner: Audience aR6 OX Rack & Amp Stands: Audio-Philar |
#3
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Howie...that's Sweet! Happy listening!
Reg
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AMP's: MC2301 (2), Shuguang Treasures KT88-Z/Gold Lion ECC81 Preamp: C500C/T, Gold Lion ECC83 TT-1 Clearaudio Innovation Wood, TT-2 & Universal Arms, Goldfinger V2 & daVinci V2 Carts TT-2: JA Michelle Gyro SE, SME IV.Vi, Lyra Helikon Mono Cart, HR Power Supply Phono Stage-1: Aesthetix Io Eclipse Phono Stage-2: Channel D - Seta Model L Server-1: Sooloos Control15 / 808.3 CDP / MD600 2x3TB / TwinStore 2x3TB / MS600 Server-2: Mac Pro (16G RAM), 2x3Ghz, Quad Core, 4 SSD Drives (Hirez, AIFF) Software: Amarra 2.3/Amarra Vinyl/Pure Vinyl 3.0 NAS: NetGear READYNAS PRO (4Tb, ALAC) ADC & DAC: Amarra Model 4 (Sonic Studio Badged: Metric Halo LIO-8 + DSP) Speakers: Sonus Faber Stradavari (2) Sub's: JL Audio Fathom f113 (2) Power: PS Audio PPP (4) Isolation: HRS-MXR Racks (2), SRA Amp Stands (4), Sound Anchor Sub Stands (2) Room Treatments:(Diffusion): RPG Hemiffusor W1 (Bass Absorption): RealTraps Cables: Wireworld Silver Eclipse 6.0 XLR's & SC's, Silver Electra PC's |
#4
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My Colibri XGP
Hi Howie..I too just received my Collibri. I set it up in my SME V arm like yours but on a Simon Yorke S7. I used the SME alignment protractor and set the VTA dead level. I applied 1.5 grams down force. It has only done a few hours and I know it will take 300 hours to break right in. It sounds good though I have noticed some excessive sibilance. I hope it will go away after more run in. It replaces a Black Beauty Special X, another VDH reference model, though not as good as the Colibri.
Any feedback you can give me as to your experience (especially re. sibilance) would be most appreciated. Also those mounting bolts in your pics seem a lot longer than the ones that came from VDH in mine. whats the story there? Thanks in advance |
#5
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colibri
Hi Howie
congratulations on your new cartridge. How do you find the output matches with the fer 2 phono. I have a benz LP and a ref2 phono and was thinking of the colibri or black beauty. I find the low gain a bit low at times need to be on about 106/140 on my BAT 52 pre. 66/140 on high gain. I see your colibri is 0.2 'ish output is that enough for good volume. I find I start to hear a slight hum at 72/140+ with the the ref2 on high gain do you experience this? |
#6
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Quote:
howie p..s would love to see a photo of your setup! |
#7
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Quote:
Sorry I missed this post completely. The Colibri is a great cartridge. Mine is no where near to breaking in though so I will reserve too much comment about the cdh until a little later especially as I have just changed my amps to Soulution and near to readjust my ears. howie |
#8
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Howie, you need a second (or third) turntable... No single cartridge is ever the magic solution for all of it.
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#9
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Quote:
(I was eyeing up the totl Thorens the other day... but there are so many to choose from! ) |
#10
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Hi Howie
here are some pics of my system kuzma XL 4 TT kuzma 313 arm ref 2 phono BAT 52se ARC CD 5 ATC anniversary active 50s I was speaking to the UK distributor of the Vdh carts and he suggested I would prefer the black beauty to the colibri. he thought the black beauty had more weight?? How do you find the colibri compared to the LP in terms of bass. I have been seriously looking at the colibri to replace my LP. |
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