Van den Hul The CONDOR

CONDOR is a hand-made, custom-built moving coil cartridge. It is a cross between our FROG and COLIBRI cartridges (two of the finest cartridges in the world), taking the best of each. It is available in a wide range of versions to meet the personal demands of the customer. Upon request, this model can be customized to suit the desires of its owner by being adapted to the tonearm, the preamplifier through its output impedance, and the musical genre it is intended to reproduce (jazz requires more dynamics than classical which demands more scale and detail). This highly innovative cartridge is specially designed for the highest quality playback. It is the first cartridge in the world that has no mechanical transfer of signal to or from the tonearm: no coloration of the sound and no background noise! CONDOR is based on FROG and uses the manufacturing method of COLIBRI: removing from the body everything that is not necessary, thus lightening the cartridge and using few materials likely to resonate or influence the sound in a negative way. CONDOR has no front pivot and uses a very powerful magnet. The suspension is an advanced 3-rubber system. While being more robust in construction and offering a purer sound result, CONDOR has the same refined sound properties as the COLIBRI: very high resolution combined with excellent spatial reproduction and very smooth highs.

Moving coil cartridge

• Stylus: VDH-IS size; 2 x 85 µm
• Frequency response: 5 Hz to 50 kHz
• Tracking force: 13.5 to 15 mN
• Compliance: 35 µm/mN
• Tracking ability (at 315 Hz at 15 mN): 70 to 80 µm
• Output voltage (1 kHz at 5.7 cm/s): 0.25 mV - 0.35 mV - 0.45 mV depending on version
• Channel separation (1 kHz, 10 kHz): > 36 dB; > 30 dB
• Channel balance: < 0.3 dB
• Stylus tip angle: 22°
• Stylus equivalent mass: 0.32 mg
• Weight: 8.75 or 9.25 g depending on version (P or M)
• Coil resistance, per channel: 21 to 96 Ω depending on version
• Recommended load impedance: Non-critical
• Recommended tonearm mass: 12 to 20 g