I submit the Legacy i.V4 Ultra for comparison to the Gryphon Antillion. The i.V4 Ultra is the best class D I have used, so that would be my choice.
I know you consider Pass Labs products as well designed, as do I. Yet, 3 Pass Labs amps, including the $42K Pass XA200.8 Monos, and the First Watt J2, all were bested by the i.V4 Ultra. I discuss this in my review at Dagogo.com. All of those falling to the Legacy i.V4 Ultra would sufficiently falsify your statement, "A great designed class-A solid state cannot be bettered."
Has anyone done this comparison (Legacy Audio i.V4 Ultra vs. Gryphon Antillion) in multiple systems? I would build approximately 8-12 systems to see how the amps would react across a spectrum of components and speaker genres. It’s not uncommon for an amp or other components such as pre, DAC, etc. to swap places to a degree, depending upon the ancillary components and cables used. It is quite possible that the comparison would end in a draw, where there were roughly equal appealing performance characteristics to each amp. No one knows apart form a comparison.
"Don’t think there’s a chance..." Thank you for your opinion. Opinions apart from actual comparisons are not too important to me. :)
