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
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.  I believe the SF Serafino’s have the same midrange and twitter as my Amati’s in a smaller box with smaller woofers.  However, when compared with my Amati and Plinnius setup the bass seemed much more extended in frequency  and very, very tight with absolutely no boom at all.  The music flowed effortlessly from the system. If I didn’t know better, I might have believed that a high quality subwoofer had been perfectly intergrated with the Serafoni’s And hidden from site.  I am optimistic that when I have time to audition the Diablo with my Amati’s in my home it will sound even better then what I heard at the dealer.  
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
After many years since I recommended Gryphon ,my brother 
finally bought the latest Diablo .It is the finest Integrated I have Ever Heard ,the Top Vitus integrated at $25k is possibly the only exception. I have not heard any amp,preamp combinations even st $20k + that will beat its musicianship and synergy. At around 90lbs
it uses the best of the best inside ,and out and is a work of art
i believe 1,200 wpc into 2 ohms doubles down from 8-2ohms.
at $17k retail . It is a bargain  a True masterpiece,and eye candy !!
hemoncdoc
Thank You for the follow up. I would like to read more about your Plinius/Thiel combination. Feel free to join us over on the Thiel Owners thread under Speakers category or send me an email (PM) here.

Happy Listening!
I purchased a Diablo 300 4 monyths ago as part of a upgrade plan. It was the first step and placed in my set in combination with my Vincent CD-S7 and Elac FS 670 CE. Now after 4 months of breaking it in I only can support your comments. What a joy to listen to. The ease in handling my speakers, the control of the sound on all freqency levels, the level of detail it can produce, the excelent build quality and I could go on from there. Every time I'm choosing a CD I'm courious in what way I will be suprised and thrilled. As you might guess by now I'm not in to streaming so I can't comment on the DAC performance (not present) but if it comes to the pure sound of the amplifier I do not think I will need an upgrade ever again. That sounds like a brave comment but at the age of 63 I am confident I can share it with you. 😉