van den Hul Colibri XPP

[PeterA]

I am enjoying listening to my Colibri XPP. It is still breaking in and has only slightly less than 20 hours so far. I've read that these need between 75-100 hours to really sound their best. The recommended loading is 200 ohms and I am switching back and forth between 250 and 160 ohms. Above 500 is way to bright and lean/thin sounding and below 100 is sluggish and a bit muddy. The output is 0.4 mV. VTF is set at 1.4 grams.

My initial sonic impressions are that it is slightly more resolving that my AirTight Supreme with great string texture, vocal articulation and spatial information, has a wider and deeper soundstage, and it seems slightly quicker. The midrange is not as rich, and there is not as much weight or body. It is leaner sounding with less emphasis on the middle frequencies, though extension in both the highs and lows is superb. It may be more tonally neutral than the Supreme which emphasises the midrange slightly. My My Sonic Labs Sig. Gold has the extension and dynamics of the Colibri and the body and weight of the Supreme, so it seems to combine various attributes of each, but it does not have the spatial resolution of the Colibri nor the heavenly midrange of the Supreme.

I'll be curious to see if and how it changes over time. Have other members had good experiences with the Colibri and does anyone know what is done at the 300 hour checkup? Is it worth sending the cartridge back at that time? I must say that naked cantilever without stylus guard makes me mighty nervous. Here is a photo:

 

[jeff1225]

Great photo and write up Peter.

 

[jackelsson]

Peter, congratulations to your new cartridge.

May I ask why you went for the plastic body version and the now rare platinium coils? Currently the wood bodys seem to be the fashion.

 

[PeterA]

Thanks Jeff and Jackelsson. This cartridge was a gift from a very good friend. He specified the platinum windings and plastic body. He has two SME tables and arms, both the 30/V and the 30/12/V-12. He decided to stick with his 11 Lyra cartridges so he sent me this to try. I've had it a couple of years and tried it briefly a year or so ago, but recently decided to live with it a while and try to break it in. He had put about two hours on it before I got it.

I agree that wood bodies are what people are now discussing. It is a different animal than my other two cartridges.

 

[shakti]

I am enjoying listening to my Colibri XPP. It is still breaking in and has only slightly less than 20 hours so far. I've read that these need between 75-100 hours to really sound their best. The recommended loading is 200 ohms and I am switching back and forth between 250 and 160 ohms. Above 500 is way to bright and lean/thin sounding and below 100 is sluggish and a bit muddy. The output is 0.4 mV. VTF is set at 1.4 grams.

My initial sonic impressions are that it is slightly more resolving that my AirTight Supreme with great string texture, vocal articulation and spatial information, has a wider and deeper soundstage, and it seems slightly quicker. The midrange is not as rich, and there is not as much weight or body. It is leaner sounding with less emphasis on the middle frequencies, though extension in both the highs and lows is superb. It may be more tonally neutral than the Supreme which emphasises the midrange slightly. My My Sonic Labs Sig. Gold has the extension and dynamics of the Colibri and the body and weight of the Supreme, so it seems to combine various attributes of each, but it does not have the spatial resolution of the Colibri nor the heavenly midrange of the Supreme.

I'll be curious to see if and how it changes over time. Have other members had good experiences with the Colibri and does anyone know what is done at the 300 hour checkup? Is it worth sending the cartridge back at that time? I must say that naked cantilever without stylus guard makes me mighty nervous. Here is a photo:

View attachment 50700

Congratulation to your XPP, which will become a rare collectable soon, as the platinum coils are not longer on offer (as you know), so be careful with the coil

I had the XPW for a long time, which gives more volume and a more full body sound than the XPP.

Depending on set up and taste I mostly prefer the wooden body Colibri, but the plastic body is the most neutral so might fit best.

The DC resistance of the platinum coil is very high, above 50ohm, so on many of my PhonoPre a high impedance was better. On IO Signature I used 5k or even 47kohm. But this differs by phonopre. Critical are current based PhonoPres, as they mostly have a problem with too high DC resistance of the cart..

During the 300h inspection the carts get inspected. That easy. Many users will get the feedback, that they were using a too high Antiskating , as AJ can see this after 300h already on the needle. If you have any complain, the colibri will get a final adjustment.
If you have a wish, so may be the customization for a special tonearm (standard Colibri is done for SME V) , this can be done at the 300h service.

For me, the platinum coil is the best coil vdh ever did. For me, the AGW Stradivarius body is my preferred one.
The AGW Stradivarius body was done after the end of the Platinum coils, so I would update the XPP to XPW AGW Stradivarius body during 300h service

AJ makes fair prices on such changes/updates.

 

[PeterA]

Thanks for your comments, shakti. If and when I hit the 300 hour mark, I may seriously consider that upgrade option if possible. I did not know about the difference between the wood and plastic bodies in terms of tonal neutrality. That is interesting. I am using a very low, to no anti skating at the moment. It seems to sound fine, but I am looking forward to hearing any sonic changes during break-in.

I have a change to report. I was noticing a bit of brightness/HF distortion with cymbals. I thought it might be possible that the arm/cartridge resonance was falling outside of the 8-12 Hz range. The Colibri box says that the cartridge is designed for an arm with effective mass of 7-14 grams. My 12" SME arm is specified as 12 grams, so it is at the upper range. In an effort to reduce the arm's effective mass, I added an extra weight and moved the counterweight sled in closer toward the pivot point. I also replaced the vdH screws that came with the Colibri with the smallest cartridge mounting screws that came with my SME arm. These weigh 0.5 grams less than the vdH screws, so I shaved a full gram from the weight of the cartridge. This is significant because the cartridge is 12" away from the pivot.

The sound became more full bodied, less thin, and slightly less distorted in the high frequencies. Cymbals have more color and are less white and bright. They sound more clean and like brass. I only have about 25 hours on the cartridge so far, but this seems to be a more natural sound. I will see as I get more time on the cartridge if I want to make further adjustments.

I am really enjoying the sound of this cartridge as it seems to retain the beautiful and natural midrange of the AirTight Supreme, and adds a bit of extension and resolution. I do wish I had the capability to add a second arm so that I could more easily make direct cartridge comparisons. I also plan to mount my MSL Sig. Gold at some point, as I have not heard that cartridge in quite some time and it was my former favorite.

Here are two photos showing the very light, low profile black SME mounting screws and very tight counterweight.

 

[shakti]

Thanks for your comments, shakti. If and when I hit the 300 hour mark, I may seriously consider that upgrade option if possible. I did not know about the difference between the wood and plastic bodies in terms of tonal neutrality. That is interesting. I am using a very low, to no anti skating at the moment. It seems to sound fine, but I am looking forward to hearing any sonic changes during break-in.

I have a change to report. I was noticing a bit of brightness/HF distortion with cymbals. I thought it might be possible that the arm/cartridge resonance was falling outside of the 8-12 Hz range. The Colibri box says that the cartridge is designed for an arm with effective mass of 7-14 grams. My 12" SME arm is specified as 12 grams, so it is at the upper range. In an effort to reduce the arm's effective mass, I added an extra weight and moved the counterweight sled in closer toward the pivot point. I also replaced the vdH screws that came with the Colibri with the smallest cartridge mounting screws that came with my SME arm. These weigh 0.5 grams less than the vdH screws, so I shaved a full gram from the weight of the cartridge. This is significant because the cartridge is 12" away from the pivot.

The sound became more full bodied, less thin, and slightly less distorted in the high frequencies. Cymbals have more color and are less white and bright. They sound more clean and like brass. I only have about 25 hours on the cartridge so far, but this seems to be a more natural sound. I will see as I get more time on the cartridge if I want to make further adjustments.

I am really enjoying the sound of this cartridge as it seems to retain the beautiful and natural midrange of the AirTight Supreme, and adds a bit of extension and resolution. I do wish I had the capability to add a second arm so that I could more easily make direct cartridge comparisons. I also plan to mount my MSL Sig. Gold at some point, as I have not heard that cartridge in quite some time and it was my former favorite.

Here are two photos showing the very light, low profile black SME mounting screws and very tight counterweight.

View attachment 50912

View attachment 50913

Nice, that the difference in Headshell screws is again heard and written about!

Persoanally I am not sure, if it is the weight or the material of the screws, which makes the difference. But on Colibri "P" version bodies I sometimes like plastic screws most and depending on the Headshell (never tried it on SME V or 12) I prefer the Yamamoto Titanium screws. If possible I do fit the Colibri with all 4 possible screws.

Even if it means adding weight, the Dereneville Headshell mat is very often a good add on for Colibri Carts, mainly if different materials come together.

( So I am not using the mat between AGW body and wooden head shells).

 

[PeterA]

Yes, I noticed the four mounting holes on the Colibri. I tried using the forward ones, but the back of the plastic cartridge body did not seat well in the SME fixed headshell, so I have to use the aft mounting holes. This increases the mounting hole to stylus distance beyond the once hoped-for by SME standardized 9.5mm distance, so my MINT protractor will not work with the Colibri and I must use the standard SME template for alignment. The pivot to stylus distance with this V-12 and Colibri is quite long.

I do not happen to know if changing the mounting screws or adding the weight and moving the counterweight made more of a difference to the sound as I was trying to reduce the overall effective mass of the arm as much as I could and I ran out of patience to listen for the differences.

That is a good question about the weight or the material of the cartridge mounting screws. I suppose one could do a series of tests to find out. I also wonder if it makes a difference if the cartridge body itself is tapped for screws or is simple drilled so one must use a bolt and nut. Now we are in the weeds. There are those who contend that "everything makes a difference."

 

[PeterA]

Well, it has been over a year and a half since I started this thread. Listening to this Colibri XPP started my interest in van den Hul cartridges. I have since bought two Colibri Master Signatures which have since been upgraded to Colibri Grand Crus. Yesterday I decided to replace the GC on my V-12 arm with this XPP.

The cartridge sounds very different now because of the various changes that I have made to the system. I was not careful to document impressions as I upgraded Colibris and also made significant changes to my system set up. Now, eighteen months later, I must say that this Colibri XPP sounds truly excellent in my system. It had platinum windings and a plastic body. I am now using static vertical tracking force rather than the dynamic (damped spring loaded) tracking force from before.

I would say the XPP is not quite as nuanced as the GC, but it is very close. It may actually have slightly better depth portrayal while the GC has slightly better channel separation for a wider soundstage, but again, it is very close. The XPP has 0.4mV output, so when using the lowest gain setting of 53 dB, the volume knob approaches unity gain. The sound is very open and dynamic and I am not attenuating the signal as much via the preamp volume control. I have decreased the loading to 47K ohms. I had been listening at 100 ohms before. This also helps with openness and liveliness quality of the sound.

Supposedly when this XPP was released, it was considered to be vdH's most neutral sounding Colibri. One friend described it as "lightning fast" and told me to hold on to my seat. I suppose this was in comparison to the more generous, warmer sounds of the popular cartridges of the day. I have gotten used to this sound with the newer Colibris that have been in my system for the last year or so. That DNA is still there. It is just a bit more refined now.

I thought I would update this thread with my latest impressions of this great, perhaps forgotten, cartridge. It is a testament to what AJ van den Hul was capable of designing back then, and it holds up extremely well today.