Van Den Hul what is the best cart ?

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.