Cartridges better than Colibri XGP?

Albert,

i don't know about your arm so i cannot really help you there; although a varible dampning like that should help to allow you to tune it. my perception is that the Colibri really loves a 'fast and neutral' arm, whatever that is, to keep up with it. if that's how you precieve your arm then it will likely work well.

yes; i owned an XGW, which is the gold windings and Mytlewood body, and it was softer/warmer (only a touch) and more forgiving. it had less a tendancy to be edgy, so it was smoother.

beautiful and interesting system you have there, congrats.

Dear Ddriveman: As already mentioned the Colibri is very good cartridge but not an " easy " one on tonearm set up.

The latest I own is alow output ( o.23mv ) in polycarbonate/plastic like body and gold coils. All the ones I owned are at the very border line of " edgy " on HF and to not cross that line it is not only that you need a good tonearm ( the AC4000 could woks but I prefer in that line the 3300 or 4400. ) but a neutral speaker/electronics.

As Mike said it: when the Colibri is right on target is a very hard LOMC cartridge hard to beat for other LOMC ones, yes the Colibri is very demanding one and VdH makes things more in " trouble " with so to many Colibri options.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

If all goes well , i will have a new Colibri XCP with a 0,22 mV output by the end of next week .
i ll post on my expiriences.

Andromedaaudio, how about an update for us? Cheers,

Spencer

That never happened , sorry.
Some audiodealer i will not mention here owned me some money , and the colibri should have been part of that deal , but he choose not to keep up on his part .
The case now is a juridical one unfortunately.

But i have good news , i bought a Moving Iron london decca cartidge as there were some raving reviews about them.
I have the london decca supergold now playing for a couple of months and i think its the best i ever had .
No need for transformers you just need a (tube) MM gainstage .
That thing is very microphonic /sensitive its also very dynamic , full of body and detail.
I think its a gamechanger , i have not touched my mc s again.
Retips are cheap , so is the cart, i will buy a reference later this year.
I m sorry that i cannot comment on the colibri.

I dont have any plans for upgrades at the moment as i am very happy with the soundreproduction , although i have plans for another (better? ) speakermodel .