Gryphon Audio Designs

The Nordic Noir design ethos, created for Gryphon by Flemming Rasmussen, reaches its zenith in Commander and its siblings, the Apex Power Amplifier and Diablo 333 Integrated Amplifier.

The culmination of Gryphon’s four decades of design and engineering expertise are fully realized in Commander: the most advanced preamplifier ever made.

Commander shares Pandora’s Dual-Mono layout with four separate chassis — two apiece for signal and power supply circuits — single-ended Class A input buffer (which passes the signal through the fewest possible parts) and zero global negative feedback. These design flourishes yield a sound that is exceptionally transparent, fast, natural and open: qualities that achieve their highest expression in Commander. The result is a preamplifier as beautiful to the ear as it is to the eye, a classic whose style and sophistication will stand the test of time.

With the Commander, you’re in control. Take command of the world’s finest audio system: only from Gryphon.

The overwhelmingly positive reception of the Gryphon Poseidon, a four-tower system that occupied a considerable piece of domestic real estate, generated massive audiophile interest for a single-enclosure, full-range system that could perform to the same high standards in somewhat smaller rooms. Now, the Gryphon Trident II breaks new ground in audio performance, exploiting innovative drivers and cabinet construction technologies to create a direct music conduit with consummate sonic neutrality, textural purity and dynamic ease.

Revised versions of Gryphon Audio Designs products are few and far between because each product is allowed to mature in its own good time, the lifespan of a Gryphon model is far longer than that of the typical high-end component that, if one is to believe the manufacturers, is suddenly outmoded and ripe for replacement after a single season.

As every component in the audio playback chain is relentlessly improved, the listening room has become “The Final Frontier” in the quest for perfect sound. Gryphon’s mission was to develop a compact, visually stunning loudspeaker specifically designed to achieve full-range high-end performance in small spaces which are typically inhospitable to ultimate audio performance.

Our answer to this challenge is EOS 2, a state-of-the-art loudspeaker conceived from its inception to bring state-of-the-art sonics to small, acoustically challenging rooms. For the first time, EOS 2 makes it possible to achieve truly world-class sound in small rooms. For urbanites, apartment dwellers and everyone whose budget and audio aspirations exceed their space limitations, EOS 2 offers the ideal solution to a previously unsolvable problem.

Never before has so much intellectual horsepower been devoted to the service of analog playback. The culmination of a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between Soren Slebo of The Gryphon Design Team, turntable legend Helmut Brinkmann, cartridge master Ortofon and the Aarhus Technical Institute, Apollo by Gryphon is more than a turntable: it is a seminal event in the history of high end audio.

Building the world’s finest analog playback system required the world’s most revered turntable designer: Helmut Brinkmann, the Stradivarius of turntable design. For more than four decades, Brinkmann turntables have been universally praised for their heirloom build quality, aesthetic beauty and most of all, their shockingly lifelike musical presentation. Helmut’s designs for his own company, while brilliant, have always been price constrained. With Apollo, he has had the opportunity to create his dream turntable without compromise.

There's a quick and easy way to experience exceptional audio quality. Simply place the magnetic clamp on the CD, lower the lid, and press the start button on the front panel. The clear menu prompts and refined design of the Danish Gryphon Ethos top-loader give you a tantalizing preview of the audio it can produce.

This CD-player design stands out in various aspects, from its triangular base (designed by Flemming E. Rasmussen) and loading mechanism to the majestic, touch-sensitive control panel on the front. In fact, the Gryphon Ethos is more than just a CD player; it's a 2-in-1 device that combines a high-quality transport (CD-Pro 8 S) with a luxurious digital-to-analog converter based on the ESS SABRE flagship ES9038Pro.

Gryphon Audio Designs has consistently offered unwavering support to the LP format with high performance MC/MM Phono Stages as optional modules for installation in preamplifiers and integrated amplifiers at all price points across our product range.

Based on the legendary Legato phono stage, the Gryphon PS3 MM/MC Phono Module is a true balanced dual-mono design for enhanced channel separation, capable of extracting every musical detail for ultimate realism.

The PS3 is an updated version of our renowned PS2 and PS2-S, offering an extended range of MC cartridge load impedance options accessible through rear panel and fully balanced signal handling.

The PS3 module can be optionally added to the Diablo 333, with more to come.

Gryphon Audio Designs has consistently offered unswavering support to the LP format with high performance MC/MM Phono Stages as optional modules for installation in preamplifiers and integrated amplifiers at all price points across our product range.

Based on the legendary Legato phonostage, the Gryphon PS2-S MM/MC Phono Module is a true dual-mono design for enhanced channel separation, capable of extracting every musical detail for ultimate realism. Gryphon Audio owners have full access to the artistic vision captured for all time by this high-resolution format. The PS2-S is an updated version of our renowned PS2 offering a wider range of cartridge load impedance options.

Our integrated amplifiers and the Essence – and Zena preamplifiers can be ordered with the phono module factory-installed. The module can also be added to the Diablo 300, Diablo 120, Diablo, Atilla, Athena, Essence or Zena later.

By assembling high performance Gryphon digital-to-analogue conversion and high-end preamplification on a single chassis, the Gryphon Zena brings a rare level of comfort, convenience and ease of use to high-end audio.

Installing an exceptional digital to analogue converter inside an equally ambitious preamplifier significantly shortens the signal path, eliminating exterior interconnects and multiple plugs and soldering points to maintain the integrity and purity of the audio signal.

The Zena Preamplifier’s optional internal DAC module draws heavily on the innovative engineering that inspired the highly acclaimed Gryphon Kalliope digital-to-analogue converter. Critics around the world praise the breakthrough design and performance of Gryphons DAC Modules.

After years of research yielded our state-of-the-art Vanta cables, what did Gryphon Audio Designs do for an encore? We distilled most of Vanta’s breakthrough performance into a more compact, flexible, and cost-effective cable series. Designed to excel with our more accessible components, Rosso approaches Vanta’s perfection, enabling virtually all Gryphon customers to enjoy the sonic splendor of an all-Gryphon system. Rosso shares its design, materials, and construction details with our Vanta product as well as the gorgeous Gryphon Red jackets unique to Rosso.

Gryphon not only manufactures all components in the audio system, we also continue to push the state-of-the-art in every product category. Recently, advancements in metallurgy and dielectric materials have made it possible to develop newer, higher-performance cable products.

We believe that audio perfection requires control of every variable in the signal path. Gryphon is proud to introduce Rosso: a revolution in cable production.

StandArt is Gryphon’s complete solution to component housing, display, and vibration control. Inspired by the circuit damping system developed for our state-of-the-art Commander Preamplifier, StandArt offers a holistic approach to vibration control combined with infinite expandability and the exquisitely beautiful visual aesthetics that are a hallmark of all Gryphon products.

It’s widely agreed that audio gear does best with careful resonance control, but there are a couple of ways to get there, such as absorption and dispersion as well as mechanical earthing: Gryphon has developed Atlas Spikes to steer resonances away from sensitive parts like speakers, disc players, DACs, amplifiers, turntables, cable/satellite TV boxes, and so on, where they could cause unwanted noise.

Gryphon research established that the size, shape, and material of spikes can have a significant influence on sound quality. Some materials can actually store some of the energy that they are intended to evacuate.

Gryphon Atlas Spikes create a uni-directional evacuation path between the equipment and the outside world, acting as mechanical diodes, conducting energy in one direction only and effectively blocking it the other way. This specific mix of materials, made from carefully chosen parts of Polyoxymethylene (POM), aluminum, and tempered steel, creates a great, one-way path for resonances, as shown by listening tests.

The Gryphon System Concept distinguishes us from all other high-end marques. It means that we not only offer every link of the playback chain — but have obsessed over the quality of each. It ensures our systems’ performance transcends the simple sum of their parts. Most recently, Gryphon has turned our attention to the importance of proper component furniture.

Charged with both isolating the component from room-borne energy while evacuating vibrational energy created within the chassis is a complex job, one which only a handful of designers have ever addressed and even fewer have mastered.