New Gryphon Flagship Commander and Apex Amplifiers

The Gryphon Flagship Commander and Apex Amplifiers make its WORLD PREMIERE!

It has always been Gryphon’s mission to achieve the highest possible sound quality, regardless of cost. With Apex Mono and Apex Stereo, Gryphon Audio Designs elevates pure Class A power amplification beyond what was previously considered possible. Years of experience developing Antileon EVO and Mephisto amplifiers, as well as ongoing research in the fields of circuit topology, component quality, and reliability have culminated in Apex: the new flagship of the Gryphon Audio Designs brand.

In every design and construction aspect, Apex is designed to be an amplifier whose performance is unlikely to be surpassed. Gryphon proclaims the Commander as “the most advanced pre-amplifier available”, while the Apex power amps merely “elevates pure Class A power amplification beyond what was previously considered possible.” However, these powerhouses will not be for the fainthearted – money-wise!

GRYPHON COMMANDER PRE-AMP

The Commander shares Pandora’s Dual-Mono layout with a separate chassis for signal and power supply circuitry.

Additionally, it retains Pandora’s single-ended Class A input buffer; which offers the advantage of passing the signal through the smallest possible number of electrical components, namely two transistors and a single resistor.

Moreover, as well as employing zero global negative feedback, Commander proclaims to benefit from significant advances in many sonically-critical areas, including a discerning, and precise, extremely low noise voltage reference in connection with the analog series regulators supplying the amplifier stages. The Commander’s voltage reference has approximately 50 times lower noise than the already-outstanding reference used in Pandora, states Gryphon.

Accommodating two massive chassis, Commander’s power supply includes four custom-made toroidal transformers – two per stereo channel – engineered for minimal noise. Two of these (one per channel) power the dual-mono pre-amplifier circuits, while the second pair is reserved for upcoming Gryphon source components, thereby ensuring a future-proof upgrade path.

GRYPHON APEX POWER AMPS

The Apex material considerations illustrate its cost-no-object design starting things off with the Apex Mono featuring an astonishing complement of 128 very high-current bipolar output transistors (64 per chassis), 2,080,000 μF (>2 Farad) capacitor banks (>1 Farad per chassis), four separate custom-made 2,000 VA toroidal transformers (two per chassis).

The Apex Stereo comes in at almost 450 pounds, while a pair of the Apex Monos will double that!  The unit will deliver nearly 1800 RMS Watts into one Ohm (Mono), and this Gryphon Apex will take on the most challenging of speaker loads.

Gryphon has been a world leader in Class A since the DM100 in 1991 as it sees no other circuit topology approaching its sonic perfection. However, based on a thorough analysis of typical listening situations, Gryphon’s clever “Green Bias” delivers true pure Class A with considerably lower power consumption than traditional solutions.

Green bias in the new Gryphon Apex allows you to select the amount of Class A required to drive speakers in pure Class A at any given time, considering such factors as speaker sensitivity, room size, musical dynamics, and overall volume level.

Culminating the features of the new Gryphon Apex are the proprietary Gryphon speaker terminals that accept bare wire, spade lugs, banana connectors, or any combination thereof. (The Sound Advocate is hoping to review one of the Gryphon amplifiers in the very near future!).

The Gryphon Commander pre-amplifier is priced at €52,500. The Apex Stereo costs €82,500, with the Mono priced at €165,000 per pair. Additionally, a StandArt Amplifier Stand will also be released soon, ticketed at €6,500.

GRYPHON AUDIO NA Inc.

9 Lynn Court, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677, USA

Contacts: rune@gryphon-audio.dk ~~ World Wide Sales/Marketing

Anthony Chiarella
Director of Sales & Marketing