Anyone bought a Gryphon Diablo 333?

@nyev I am glad to hear your new Essence and Makua are treating you so well! I enjoyed reading your write-up thus far and look forward to hearing more as they continue to burn-in and as your re-terminated Dragon gets put back into your system.

@62truck , I received the reterminated Dragon back and installed it last night, and my system performance went down - there was a loss in clarity and dynamics vs the stock cable.  I replaced the stock cable to be sure, and noticed that the bass was a touch cleaner on the Dragon but the top end was clearer, more present and dynamic with the stock cord!

It must be that that both ends which are new need to be burned in, or simply that the cable needs to resettle after being moved around and likely having the DBS system disrupted.  I’ve noticed that all of my new AQ power cords have not sounded good for the first 20 or so days of on-time, so maybe it’ll take some time again.  Not good that the stock cable sounds better (aside from the bass) at this time but hey at least it’s proof that power cords make a difference, lol.

@nyev 

I’ve only heard of Mola Mola TAMBAQUI DAC until your post about the Makua preamp, so I researched both the Makua preamp and the KALUGA MONO POWER AMPLIFIER.  The Makua reviews were impressive and their optional DAC and phono are surprisingly very high sonic quality.  The Kalua was also a surprise- as massive but controlled feedback yields an “effortless” sound in which I’m after.  Last time I heard “effortless” was when I heard Gryphon Commander + APEX at an audio show, but it’s way past my budget.  Thanks for sharing.  

@nyev , glad to hear the pre is working so well for you. Not sure the exact science of it, but the MMT directly into the Essence amp suffers greatly compared to having a pre amp in the chain. 

@ricky64 , not sure if you’ve read the same, but I’ve read quite a few articles stating why DAC’s with digital volume controls going direct to amplifiers will lack dynamics, depth, and body, while being “edgy”.  Christiaan from HiFi Advice has an article on this topic (a reviewer I respect quite a bit), as do others.  Apparently has to do with software manipulation of the source signal prior to converting to analog, when a digital volume control is used.