AudioAficionado.org - Ecki's System

My hifi dealer had suggested for a while that I should listen and consider Gryphon amplifiers if I wanted to upgrade my Burmester 088 & 911 amplifier combo. I was not really interested, I was used to the Burmester sound and was rather thinking of getting another 911 mk3 as a move to mono power amplifiers. However, beginning of May my dealer brought me a Gryphon Ethos CD player for testing. I was simply blown away by the Ethos. I can't remember being so impressed with a new component in my system ever! My dealer sensed the opportunity and decided to go for the full attack ;) He could bring a Gryphon Antileon Mono amplifiers & and a Gryphon Pandora preamplifier and leave it with me for a while. Now I agreed to give them a try. Two weeks later he called me to announce the delivery of the Gryphon components Saturday at 11:30am. Good. This would allow me to tell my wife over breakfast I would get some hifi test equipment around noon.

Next morning around 9am my phone woke me up. My wife was still sleeping and my dealer on the phone. He had booked 2 strong men with a truck to transport the crates (me: crates? what crates?). To make sure they were not late he had booked them for 10am, hoping they would show up by 11. Surprisingly they had shown up before 9, had just loaded everything and left for my place. He would be there in 20 minutes too. Could I make coffee?

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Some of the crates after unpacking

Everything arrived while my wife was still sleeping and the monster boxes for the 84kg amplifiers were unloaded. After some work and some coffee everything was installed and it was time to switch the power on. I was explaining to my wife (who was a bit surprised to find workers with big crates in the living room) that this was a listening exercise to understand what was possible and that these components were far too heavy, expensive and powerful for our requirements. My wife looked at me with that look which says, you have some more explaining to do and I don't believe a word of what you said before. She then took the dog for a walk and left me and the dealer with our business. We checked that everything worked and then I was alone, waiting for the new components to warm up.

When my wife came back we had a quick lunch and afterwards I told her to just listen together with me. Which we did. For hours. We were glued to the sofa. We heard new details in almost every CD we played. We felt like teenagers. After the first bit of class A sound in this house I knew I had a problem. No way these amplifiers would leave again. My room had never been so filled with music. Even at lower volume, there was a cloud of music that was reaching wide into the room. Our speakers suddenly became alive, this was not a small upgrade, this was like day and night. It was as if we suddenly had different speakers! I think I never heard so much music in my life, in a way it was like rediscovering my favourite music. We enjoyed the music so much that it would be impossible to go back to the old system without feeling a heavy loss. So I made the call and asked my dealer to make me a fair offer. It took us a little while but ultimately we came to an agreement with him taking my Burmester gear and me sending him a check.

My wife - before this exercise - had been rather skeptical of "better" sounding systems. Listening sessions of potentially new gear at dealers had never excited her - the visual aspect is very important, she doesn't want the hifi system to optically dominate the living room. I have enough man-caves already, she says. Now after hearing one song (sic!) her attitude went from "no way these amplifiers stay in my living room" to "I hope he at least keeps the loudspeakers".

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Bottom shelf: Gryphon Pandora power supply, Gigawatt EVO 4 power conditioner
Middle shelf: Aurender N30a power supply, Aurender N30a digital unit
Top shelf: Gryphon Pandora pre amplifier, Gryphon Ethos CD player
Floor: Gryphon Antileon mono amplifiers

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The Pandora looks modest, small and petite. It is surprisingly light!

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The Antileon are big, heavy and have a bad ass look ;) I am looking to get granite slabs so they don't stand directly on the floor.

In-Akustik are changing my bi-wire 2.5m Air Reference into 2x1.2m. I want to connect the KEF Blades bi-wiring terminals with 2 separate cables from the 2 speaker outputs of the Antileon. There is some more stuff to do with wiring, power feeds etc etc.

I have never been more happy with my system and my wife loves it too.

Kind regards,
Ecki