Finally Heard some Gryphon gear....
I am visiting my home in Bombay, India & was invited to an audiophile's house thru a contact of my brother (another audio nut like me!). This has got to be one of my top 5 best listening sessions!!!
The gear was:
Wadia 861 CDP
Gryphon CDP
Gryphon Allegro Sonata 2-chassis preamp
Gryphon Antilleon Signature Stereo power amp - 150W/ch pure class-A operation
Dynaudio Confidence 5 floor standing speakers - these are no longer in production but were $10,000/pair when manuf. They use a (natural) silk Esotar tweet, (natural) silk dome mid & an isobaric 8" woofer. The drivers arrangement is inverted i.e. the tweet is the lowest, above it is the mid & the top-most is the woofer. Time-aligned & 1st order electric xover.
Interconnects were Argento VDM
Speaker cables were Argento VDM
Power cords were a mixture of VdH & Jorma (Swedish)
The sound of this system using the Gryphon CDP was exemplary & made me cry! It was so emotional & musically satisfying. Fantastic timbral accuracy, excellent soundstaging, hours of listening without any fatigue, plenty of details without being analytical & most of all emotionally very satisfying.
Earlier in the day I had heard Dynaudio's newer offerings: Confidence C2, Audience 52 & Audience 72. The Audience 52 was driven by the Cayin TA-30 EL34-based 30W/ch amp. This combination was also very satisfying for the price range. The Confidence C2 was driven by the McCormack DNA-125 & either the amp or speaker was lacking 'cuz the sound was very mediocre for the price range. I heard the bigger Cayin 50W/ch amp drive the Audience 72 but the sound was mediocre too.
One thing that I did notice was the newer Dynaudio speakers do not have natural silk dome tweeters. The newer ones are some synthetic man-made material & the sound is much compromised vs. the Confidence 5 that I heard later in the evening. Looks like, for those who have sampled Dynaudio speakers of yester years, Dynaudio is not the same sort of speaker manuf. today that it was just a few years ago. I also believe the original owner/founder/chief-designer of Dynaudio has sold off the company & it is now run by some totally diff. people(?).
Anyway, I had reached 1 level of sonic Nirvana when I listened to the Gryphon-Confidence 5 system!! Too blooming good!
When we compared the Wadia 861 to the Gryphon CDP all 3 of us agreed that the Wadia seemed to have more high freq. extension at the cost of some high freq. sizzle. While the Gryphon was more natural in its delivery. Possible that it was rounded off. We did not think so as both CDPs were connected to the Gryphon pre & we A/B'd both CDPs with the same CD playing in both players. Yes, this person had 2 identical CDs of certain music - mostly classical. We concluded that the Wadia was the audiophile's friend while the Gryphon was the music lover's friend. I personally preferred the Gryphon CDP for long-term listening. The Wadia 861's high end sizzle was not acceptable to me.
Has anyone else listened to 1 or all of this gear?? Are your experiences similar? different? (I'm merely looking to have a CIVIL exchange of experiences so PLEASE leave the FLAMES AT HOME!). TIA! Happy listening!
FWIW. IMHO. YMMV.
