Sibilance from Van den Hul Colibri

If you sure you set it up correctly, I would complain to VDH....I've seen them come from the factory defective

I've never owned a Colibri but have heard it in many high end systems. It is EXTREMELY finicky with respect to set-up. When not properly tuned, the sound will tend to be as you describe and there is a very fine line between heaven and strident.

Dear Shussbliss : As Jazdoc said it " there is a very fine line " down there that will be tammed after the VdH cartridge fine tunning that VdH makes for your cartridge by free after your sample achieve 300 hours of playback.

So, IMHO you don't have to worry yet. You have to wait for that VDH cartridge fine tunning before any " serious " in deep cartridge evaluation.

The Colibri is a top contender. I own the 0.22mv cooper coils model that IMHO performs better than the silver and gold ones that I heard it, I don't heard it yet the platinum one.

Btw, I don't load the Colibri as high as VDH recomend or as you do but as low as 100-150 ohms. You can try and see what happen.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.