Let’s start off this morning’s coverage with one of those montage sequences, a series of photographs that allow you to take a deep breath and appreciate the finer things before delving back to the show reports. Finer things, like amplifiers from The Gryphon. I’ve known about this brand for many years–I can remember attending my first CES during the Alexis Park years and hearing a pair of $1,500/pr Enigma Acoustique monitors from Quebec sound absolutely stunning with a full rack of The Gryphon.
“It’s the amplifiers that are making those speakers sound so great,” the exhibitor told me.
These days, The Gryphon stands poised to take on all comers in the land of supreme and exotic high-end amplification. Just look at their new flagship, the Apex, which weighs 450 pounds and is priced at $99,000 “per chassis,” which of course means you can get it in a stereo or monoblock configuration. Take one look at the mere size of this Nordic Goth beast (that’s the actual name of the design aesthetic, I found out), and you’ll wonder–1000 watts per channel? 2000? Nope.
How about 210 watts per channel Pure Class A for the Gryphon Apex in stereo configuration? That got my heart racing when Anthony Chiarella told me that. I love pure Class A. But I’ve never seen a number like that before. The first question, uttered by a show attendee, was “How hot do they get?I” The simple answer is they don’t, thanks to the elaborate heat sinks. Look at those fins.
The Gryphon room at AXPONA 2022 was a static display, which can be a tricky thing at a high-end audio show. (People used to do it all the time at CES, and now at the Munich show.) Show attendees kept asking Anthony to plug them in, or play some music, but a static display always works when you you’re showing something this gorgeous, and exotic and dear. You just want to look and maybe touch when no one is looking.
The rest of The Gryphon gear in the room included the matching Commander pre ($69,000) and that gorgeous Ethos transport/DAC ($39,000). I am arranging a review of an integrated amplifier from The Gryphon from one of their more earthbound lines, and I can’t wait. Anthony also prompted me to visit a room just upstairs that featured Octave Audio, Dynaudio and a little turntable called the Brinkmann Balance. After spending so many months with the Brinkmann Taurus, I felt like it was a poignant reunion. I miss that Taurus so.
If you would like to hear even more coverage from AXPONA 2022, check out our recap report and highlights from our audiophile-oriented show The Occasional Podcast. You can stream the episode direct from the embed below, or from your favorite podcast platform including iTunes, Android, Google, Deezer, Spotify, iHeartRadio and more.
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