Anyone who has had a VdH Colibri for over 1000hrs

Vusi - the only thing that scares me more than the idea of filing the threads on cartridge screws is "going through a few" of these things!

Seriously, I am interested what you think the differences are between the XGP LW and a regular XGP model? Is one more difficult to tame than the other? I believe the effective mass of my tonearm is 10.5g and the dealer told me he thought the LW would be a good match.

Cfluxa what I'm guessing you are referring to as 'regular' is in fact the Reference or higher end (and weight) cart. Must be honest the 2 XGP LWs I went through were from memory as good as the Ref XGP. I think the Ref is about 2gr heavier but it is my opinion that if effective mass wasn't an issue then the sound would be close. You are more likely to find bigger sonic differences if the cantilever length is different or when comparing to Wood and Metal bodied ones. I ventured into the Refs so I could try Copper coils and higher voltage output, options I don't remember being offered on LWs. I suspect that longer cantilever versions of Colibris are easier to tame. Might as well share that the Ref XCP H.O. (1mv) had a similar length (longer) cantilever to the last XGP LW (and was very tame/polite/tracked best) but it couldn't match the bass of the LW. Had to send it back, they installed a shorter cantilever. Now the bass was as good or better (also edgier at the top) and it sounded louder (more output?) which is great because the plan with H.O. was so I could run cart into MM input of Phono. As posted earlier I have since managed to get rid of most of the edginess.

Vusi, I believe you bought my HO Colibri, and I bought it from Mike. So, you and Mike can compare notes directly. That Colibri has nearly traveled around the globe, especially if Mike sent it to vdH before I bought it from him. I would love to hear it again, against my current crop of cartridges.

Lewm yes it's the cart you sold me, it will one day be one of the few Colibris with over 2000hrs ;-) There is a XGP 0.65mv that Bas sold here a while back, the day I buy it I will send you the XCP to play with for a few months.

Vusi - Thanks very much for the excellent insight which, to my surprise, was actually somewhat encouraging... I see my Colibri is somewhere between Holland and the US at the moment, so I reckon it'll be another week or so before it's through customs and at my door. I look forward to posting my impressions, and hope you'll stay tuned for any questions or crises I might manage to come up with. ; )