Van Den Hul what is the best cart ?

Newbie here. I have a VPI Prime Signature w/ a JMW 10 #D Unipivot I purchased over the summer. Started w/ a DynaV 20x2 and didn't care for that and found a VDH Crimson w/ 200 hours (and sent back to VDH for checkup) and that was a revelation. Wow. 

Sadly, it only took me 3 weeks to snap off the cant and had to send it back to AJ. I didn't know how long it would take so I bought a HANA Red for the wait. After that was broken in - wow again. I don't have the ear many of you have for nuances and they sound very close to me. Had the Red on for about 75 hours or so and somehow it got loosened up so I just put the Crimson on last w/e to see if I could tell a difference. A little but not much and it wasn't broken. The Crimson now has about 20 hours on it and even w/ that little bit it is now sounding the same as the HANA - mostly. I think for me to really be able to tell the difference I will need to let the Crimson fully breakin (whenever that is) and then go back to the Red again.

I have no idea which one I will use "full-time" and which one will be the "backup". I'll probably buy another arm at some point so I can switch back and forth quickly. 

Btw, the service from VDH was great and pricing was reasonable.

i like the refresh of this thread…so many excellent contributors who have owned top flight carts make for balanced viewpoints….. Updates ?….. 

i am a long cantilever robot with depleted coils… 

jim

@laynes You might want to consider posting your system in the Audiogon Systems section. Upon reading your posts, the first thing that struck me is that the DV20X2 is one of Dyna's more most models, and like 25% of the cost of the other two. Yes, both the Crimson & Hana should be in a different league altogether. However, you should be hearing a fair bit distinguishing them from each other. That leads me to ask about the rest of the system...

When I owned a JWM arm (12.6, 12.7 on a TNT6-HR), I found it to be very sensitive to VTA/SRA and was constantly adjusting it on almost every album. Gain and loading with those two carts may not have been optimized for one of them. The devil's in those details. If you share more info, someone here may provide you with a golden nugget or two that can bring out the best and the more nuanced differences between those two fine carts. Cheers,

Spencer

@nandric , how many people have you watched age over a lifetime? Not very many obviously. As JFK relates, "Old age is a train wreck." Nobody, and I mean nobody has the manual dexterity at age 80 that they had at age 24. Some are better than others. "Going Strong" for most 80 year olds is still breathing. Yes, I know some 80 year olds that are still running 1/2 marathons and I had one patient who at 84 could still dead lift 480 lb but these are the rare exceptions. The 84 year old had stopped working on his own cars because he was having difficulty with his eye site. 

Old age is something you have to cover up with humor and the sensibility to retreat from activities that have become to dangerous either physically or legally whilst giving up as little ground along the way as possible. You can't think about it, too depressing, just as bad is painting it as something it is not.

One thing I can say about you nandric is your mental capabilities are still going strong. Keep eating those jellyfish pills:)

@sbank , Trust me on this one. You have to get rid of those arms. The quality of your life will increase 10 fold. Angels will sing in your ears and throw petals at your feet. You might even get a massage (I would say with a "happy ending" but then the post will get pulled.)