I listened to the Gryphon Diablo today , what an experience !


I just had an opportunity to audition  the Gryphon Diablo 300 at Evolution Home Theater. They have recently become the authorized Gryphon Dealer in Atlanta. First a little background.  I normally listen to my Sonus Faber Amati Tradition powered by a Plinius 9200. My music is from Tidal, played through a Cambridge  Audio Azur 851N network player or via my network hard drive. I thought that this combination sounded great and was very happy with my system until today when I heard the Gryphon.Although I expected some  improvement with Gryphon, I did not expect to be blown away by the amplifier, However after hearing the amplifier for the first time,  that is exactly what happened!The Gryphon 300 was set up to use the internal DAC with Tidal via a music server.  The speakers were the Sonus Faber Serafina’s. I had previous heard both the Amati’s and the Serafina’s  on MAC equipment and thought the Amati’s sounded significantly better on the MAC gear,When I listened today  and compared the music with my own system, I heard significant improvement with the Gryphon. The first thing I noticed was the pinpoint control the amplifier exerted on the speakers.  This was manifested by an extended frequency range with both improved  bass and treble. It seemed as though a veil or haze had been removed from the music with a marked increase in clarity, detail, and analytics.  Yet the amplifier showed no coolness or harshness and after listening for several hours to a variety of music (mostly jazz, classical, and rock) there was no evidence of fatigue. The soundstage was large, three dimensional and detailed.  It was an improvement over my Plinius in every way.It also changed the way that I look at my music system.  I used to think that it was all in the speakers and with great speakers all that was needed was a good amplifier.  I learned today that a great amplifier with very good speakers, can sound better than a good amplifier with excellent speakers.I can hardly wait until I can make the time to be able to demo the Gryphon in my own music room with my Amati speakers.
hemoncdoc

Showing 5 responses by georgehifi

Great post for those looking to drive speakers that dip to 2ohms, I will put a link to your post up here in the: 
"What Class D amps will drive a 2 ohm load"

Cheers George   


 
I am reading this thread with amusement regarding the same old same old people pushing their gear.
+1.
Correct, whether it’s what they sell, make or own, they push, it’s never with them what they don’t have an affiliation with.

Cheers George
George: even with the smaller Diablo 300 intergrated, the mid range and highs seem to “float” and the speakers almost disappeared as you correctly stated. But I was also very impressed with the bass.
Yes to me the Gryphon’s are one of the best commercial linear amps anyone could listen to. Especially the ones that are high biased into class-A or adjustable bias for that Class-A sweetness, like the Antillion’s, or the older fixed high bias DM100’s

And because they use bi-polar (bjt) output transistors with big power supplies, they can drive down into low impedance’s far better than tube, mosfet, hybrid, and present day class-D.

Cheers George

No grief about it sunshine.
Just saying it, because all these inefficient, heavy, hot and expensive linear amps like the Gryphon, even though I love them now, will be dinosaur’s one day

Cheers George
I've heard a Gryphon Antilleon Evo Signature in high bias mode, drive the "undrive'able"  0.9ohm!!! in the bass Wilson Alexia 1's and 2's, that amp drove them as if they were a pair of Klipsch-horns, and the mids and highs were so detailed yet floating in air as if the speakers weren't in the room.
I can only hope one day that Class-D with new GaN technology can get up to this standard of reproduction in the mids and highs, and be able to drive into hard loads like the Alexia has.

Cheers George