Should I buy a VDH Colibri or Black Beauty?

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.

Lewm,

It's hard at times to post on A-Gon and be thorough yet brief or concise enough to keep a reader involved. I should have been more specific and mentioned that the sibilance problem (which both Raul and Rudy have addressed) was separate and distinct from the mistracking that I experienced. Could the mistracking have caused the sibilance? Possibly, but I don't think so as the Colibri is so fast and transients so razor sharp that some sibilance is a probably just a by-product of that characteristic.

My Colibri(s) actually mistracked badly. What shocked me about this was that my Grasshopper and BB were excellent trackers notwithstanding the very low recommended VTF of the van Den Hul designs. I ran the Colbris up and down the VTF scale from .6 gms all the way to 2.6 gms in .02 gm increments all to no avail. I guess it's also possible that the cartridges the distributor sent me were never actually adjusted by VDH or were not actual replacements. Maybe the distributor simply kept sending me the same defective cartridge I originally bought. Either way, I ran out of patience (this took over a year to conclude) and went to the XV-1s and never looked back.

I'm a little concerned that the Colibri only sounds good with excellent recordings

No, no, it's just that excellent recordings can sound unexpectedly "excellent" when you use a Colibri... A few quick notes fm me too:
I too found that the Colibri outperformed BB.
VdH products, when in good condition, are pretty good for the asking price; a few yrs ago, when I used them the value was great!
The Colibri is an annoyingly unfriendly product & I used a slightly/ minuscule negative vta to keep hi frequencies on par with upper bass.
Sibilance (pronounced 6-8kHz): I never got completely ride of it EXCEPT by varying the speed of the record -- and then, only on certain records.
Clearly, if your azimuth is off, you WILL have hi frequency anomalies;

My suggestion:
1) If your phono is "good" (i.e. not outstanding), buy the BB and, perhaps, invest in an even better phono.
2) Breathe down the seller's/ dealer's... etc neck to set the cartridge up perfectly. Including the loading.
Regards

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.

Dear Fmpnd, No idea about the dimensions of your SME-30
but for my Kuzma Stabi Reference I solved the problem by
ordering from 'Reed L' (www.turntables.lt)one special 'torret' (aka 'base') with one 12" tonearm.
This combo is made after consultation about the relevant
dimensions . So I put this combo next to my TT and enjoy
the luxury of two tonearms. BTW the phono is Basis exclusive with 2 inputs and the tonearms are: Triplanar VII
with Ruby 3 and Reed L 2 A (29 gr.eff.mass) with Phase Tech
P-3G.
Regards,