About The Van den Hul The Frog Moving Coil Phono Cartridge
The Frog, like all van den Hul cartridges is hand built by A.J. Van Den Hul himself. The place is usually a small room in his farmhouse in northern Holland although he has built them in our showroom here in Ringwood.
The van den Hul Frog MC Cartridge is a custom hand-built moving coil cartridge with the coil of a Grasshopper III and the front pole and suspension of the Grasshopper IV: the best cartridge available for its price! The Frog has a 0.65 mV/channel output, matched crystal copper-wire coils and extra magnet modification.
In The News
"It's not easy being green. Throughout the auditioning, I was impressed by the amount of musical detail van den Hul's Frog managed to extract from recordings I know well. Yet I never felt it was emphasizing detail over the gestalt. Without ever cloying, the Frog was unceasingly warm — music never lost its "human" touch. And the cartridge mated with a wide variety of tonearms and phono preamps. The Frog is no prima donna — it plays well with others.
Add to that the cartridge's extended stylus life and the firm's reasonable retipping charge and the Frog seems a bargain. It's easy to use, easy to drive, and sounds great. Expensive cartridges are going to be hard put to justify their cost with the Frog around — I'd think long and hard before shelling out more. And I'm not really sure that, in the long run, I'd save money by spending less. For my money, right now, the Frog is the cartridge to beat. And that's no joke." Stereophile
Main Features & Specifications
- Type: Moving coil phono cartridge
- Frequency Range 5Hz to 55kHz
- Stylus Shape: VDH - IS
- Stylus Radii: 2 x 85 Micron
- Tracking Force: 1.2 to 1.6 grams
- Static Compliance: 35 Micron / mN
- Tracking Ability: at 15 mN at 315 Hz 70 - 80 Micron
- Output Voltage: at 1 kHz at 5.7 cm/s eff. 0.65 mV RMS
- Channel Unbalance: < 0.3 dB
- Channel Separation: at 1 kHz/10 kHz >35 / >30 dB
- Equivalent Stylus Tip Mass: 0.32 Milligram
- Vertical Tracking Angle: 22 Degrees
- Optimum Load Capacitance: non-critical
- Recommended Load Impedance: 500 (> 200) Ohm
- Recommended Eff. Tone arm Mass: 6 - 10 Gram
- Moving Coil Resistance (per channel): 21 Ohm
- System Weight: 8.2 Grams
- Manufacturer's Warranty: 12 months - cartridge only
Note: Features & Specifications Subject To Change Without Notice. E&OE