Regrettably I did not try the Sleipner / Colibri combo prior to purchase. The Sleipner was manufactured after I confirmed the purchase - took the manufacturer 4-5 months. But I was happy with the Sindre / Ortofon Winfeld combo so I thought I was going up the ladder in terms of sound quality.
Jonathan, appreciate your insight on the Colibri. This was recommended by my dealer hence I took it without a second thought as they did good for me on the Sindre. They will assist me to get this right.
I am newbie learning this slippery rope of vinyl playback. I had a Rega P3 more than 10 years ago fitted with a Shure V15XMR but this combo did not seem to outperform my CD player at the time so I my uptake on vinyl playback was stunted for a while. In the last 3 years, things were also start stop until about a year ago.
As I mentioned, a couple of years ago I bought a VPI HRX + Soundsmith SG200 (base model). No one in town was an expert at setting up the table. Ended up that I was getting some kind of distortion at the inner groove. I had several go at it myself doing the alignment seeking help from Peter from Soundsmith bought their antiskating device all to no avail. Towards the last 2 tracks of most records, I get distortion when amplitude was high.
As a result of this, I went looking for a linear tracking tonearm table & I found the Bergmann Sindre. The dealers came to my house across the ocean to help me set up everything tip to toe. From there on, I started with some collection of vinyl. Often, I am defeated by my own laziness & instead just go for the convenience of my streamer.
Anyway, fast forward to end of last year. On a whim, I replaced the stylus to the strain gauge with the spare stylus on whim (for some reason the unit came with a spare stylus of a different geometry). The distortion was gone. Everything is glorious !
Went ahead to purchase a SG230 & the sound was better than ever. The SG200 only had single ended outputs & I wanted balance outputs & more gain to feed my ARC 40 linestage.
So nowadays it's 30% - 40% vinyl time while the rest time on my streamer + Vivaldi which is no slouch. However, on well recorded or even older early pressings - well, play digital first before going to vinyl is the way.
Through all these, I realised that everything makes a difference unlike the Rega P3 + Shure combo. The exploration begins.
Regards,
Joe Ling