Gryphon Apex Stereo power amplifier Measurements (Stereophile)

[noiseangel]

These ratios are referred to 1W into 8 ohms, ie, 2.83V. The audioband ratio is 85dB, ie, the level of random noise and power supply-rated spuriae is just below 0.02%. This is not audible.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Because if you don't do the tests, you won't know what the level of noise etc is.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

No John, read what you said.

The audioband ratio is 85dB, ie, the level of random noise and power supply-rated spuriae is just below 0.02%. This is not audible.

According to your statement all you have to do is listen, 85dB inaudible noise is irrelevant. if you cant hear it then it doesn't matter. By your own rationale. plug it in, if you cant hear it then its's inaudible and doesn't matter therefore this 100k amp is worth the money. Make up your mind, you either test to the nth degree and present those figures, inaudible or not or just put it in the lounge room and turn it on and if it's inaudible it passes the stereophile advertiser test. Just buy test equipment that only goes to -90db just to be safe, thats where your tests should end. This is why I don't bother with anything you say anymore. I come here instead. I was a subscriber to stereophile for over 20 years. I don't know what a subscription to stereophile is worth these days but you have lost the last 5 years worth from me. It's just a pity that more manufacturers don't/won't send their equipment here to be tested. Very few have the spine to do it. Which lends me to believe that most of the high priced audio equipment designers are invertebrate's. I fail to see how some of them stand upright.


"It's all over now Baby Blue."

 

[DVDdoug]

I was just re-watching the movie Medusa - Dare To Be Truthful, which is a silly Madonna spoof. I can easily imagine a rich celebrity telling their assistant, "Get me the best, most expensive, stereo made." The celebrity probably knows nothing about audio, even if they are a musician, and the assistant knows nothing so they go find a consultant who is more than happy to help them out.

 

[RammisFrammis]

(there is sometimes a reason they got rich ;-))

I'm sure there are sometimes quite intelligent drug lords.

 

[RammisFrammis]

Hand-finished products are often flawed. Mass production is the single biggest driver of quality control.

That is an observation and should not be an excuse. Hand finished products, and I would hope CAREFULLY HAND INSPECTED products should not be assumed to be flawed.

 

[fpitas]

That is an observation and should not be an excuse. Hand finished products, and I would hope CAREFULLY HAND INSPECTED products should not be assumed to be flawed.

Easily said, but with a measly $99,000 profit margin you can't afford to do a lot.

 

[RammisFrammis]

These ratios are referred to 1W into 8 ohms, ie, 2.83V. The audioband ratio is 85dB, ie, the level of random noise and power supply-rated spuriae is just below 0.02%. This is not audible.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Certainly I think for 100K we would expect more than "This is not audible"! John, admit it. Gryphon screwed the pooch. Please don't try to make excuses for a screwed pooch.

 

[noiseangel]

Easily said, but with a measly $99,000 profit margin you can't afford to do a lot.

And life does become a lot easier when you have a high profile magazine making excuses for the shortcomings of your product. When I finish my Quadraphonic Converter Sound Stage grease I know who I am going to get to review it. Since the result doesn't matter it will sell.

 

[RammisFrammis]

Easily said, but with a measly $99,000 profit margin you can't afford to do a lot.

Yes, very true.

 

[John Atkinson]

According to your statement all you have to do is listen, 85dB inaudible noise is irrelevant.

Please don't put words in my mouth. If you don't examine the level of noise, you don't know how close it gets to audibility. I test every amplifier with a standard procedure, as does Amir on this site.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

[BlackTalon]

Maybe we are approaching this from the wrong angle by just blasting away at what appears to be some tiptoeing by Mr. Atkinson? Maybe he would consider providing some reasons as to why this amplifier is worth $100k in his opinion if the tone of the comments here changed?

What do you think @John Atkinson ? I am interested to learn what may make this amplifier worthy of the lofty pricing from your perspective. I could have 24 more Bryston 4BSTs in my family room for the price of this amp and I admit I scratch my head trying to figure what it can do that justifies that pricing.

I've subscribed to Stereophile for about 29 years now. Lately though I have had a tough time getting motivated to read the new issues. I used to read a bit every night when a new issue came in, but I have barely touched the last handful of issues. I am very happy to see some of the products that are popular on ASR get reviewed these days, but even then they seem to get damned with faint praise while $$$$ gear that measures no better than sub $1k equipment gets highly recommended.

 

[voodooless]

What do you think @John Atkinson ? I am interested to learn what may make this amplifier worthy of the lofty pricing from your perspective.

He probably won’t tell you. Neither does Stereophile. If you read carefully they generally give no value judgement. It’s just a bunch of audiophile pose, and that’s it. Giving a value judgement would harm advertising income.

 

[John Atkinson]

Maybe we are approaching this from the wrong angle by just blasting away at what appears to be some tiptoeing by Mr. Atkinson? Maybe he would consider providing some reasons as to why this amplifier is worth $100k in his opinion if the tone of the comments here changed?

It is not within my purview as the person who provides the measurements to accompany Stereophile's reviews to comment on a component's value-for-money. That is the responsibility of the reviewer, Michael Fremer in this case, and/or editor Jim Austin.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

[Blumlein 88]

It is not within my purview as the person who provides the measurements to accompany Stereophile's reviews to comment on a component's value-for-money. That is the responsibility of the reviewer, Michael Fremer in this case, and/or editor Jim Austin.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Actually the dear reader can ascertain the value for money level quite easily. Glad you did the measurements of such a product.

 

[voodooless]

It is not within my purview as the person who provides the measurements to accompany Stereophile's reviews to comment on a component's value-for-money.

Told ya:

He probably won’t tell you.

 

[Kremmen]

For $99,000 I would expect this Gryphon Apex Stereo amplifier to not only work correctly, but to come with free, 24-hour, on-demand, full body massages from the hottest masseuses on the planet for the rest of my life. Anything less, and it's no deal.

 

[teched58]

It is not within my purview as the person who provides the measurements to accompany Stereophile's reviews to comment on a component's value-for-money. That is the responsibility of the reviewer, Michael Fremer in this case, and/or editor Jim Austin.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Ah, but right here you are indeed commenting on its value, albeit in a fortune-cookie (or perhaps Pravda/Izvestia) kind of way. (And we who read your measurements page, which I've come to think of as a kind of after action review (AAR) of each review, appreciate it.)

As for fobbing off value judgment responsibilities on Jim and Mikey, Mr. Austin, is never, ever ever going to write or say anything that will reawaken the slumbering nightmare of having to leave a decent job at a declining but still salary paying website and face the horror of having to write trade newspaper career content again. A job which no longer exists, btw, at least not in a remunerative sense. (At least Jim has a good reason for doing what he's doing; I know the business and I can't fault him. I'd do the same thing myself. Why Herb Reichert is willing to verbally stroke expensive cables when he can't be getting more than $300 an article is beyond me. You'd have to pay me much more to debase my technical reputation.)

As for Mikey, well perhaps he'd be inclined to take a second mortgage to purchase a Gryphon, but he's probably pouring his sock-drawer pennies into Tracking Angle, which is technically not yet past its promised launch date ("Coming summer 2022"), but is sure cutting it close.

 

[Vacceo]

For $99,000 I would expect this Gryphon Apex Stereo amplifier to not only work correctly, but to come with free, 24-hour, on-demand, full body massages from the hottest masseuses on the planet for the rest of my life. Anything less, and it's no deal.

What it may actually happen is that it will send E.T. rescue signal, distort it and turn "come back to me" into "destroy all humans". Luckily we could use it to shoot down the ship just by size alone.

 

[noiseangel]

Please don't put words in my mouth. If you don't examine the level of noise, you don't know how close it gets to audibility. I test every amplifier with a standard procedure, as does Amir on this site.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

I never put words in your mouth, that was your mouth that opened not mine. Usually I hear that phrase when I have a witness in the box cornered like a rat, it's very strange hearing that coming from you as a defence. That is why I quoted what YOU said so you could not specifically use that phrase and yet you did. Read it anyway you want. Please don't compare yourself to Amir, who at the end of every set of measurements is man enough to offer an opinion as to whether or not he recommends the equipment under test. He has a spine that allows him to stand up. Fortunately for Gryphon and yourself Amir will never get to test this boat anchor and put another nail in the coffin.

Here are a few more words I never put in your mouth.

Your excuse for the poor performance of the amplifier in your "Review".

Presumably, the left channel's higher levels of distortion and noise and its higher output impedance than the right channel's are sample-specific. But even so, the Gryphon Apex Stereo offers high power coupled with a wide bandwidth and primarily low levels of low-order distortion.

Your excuse for the poor performance of the amplifier on ASR.

Something that I don't think is widely appreciated is that samples that are submitted to a magazine for review are often much-traveled, especially in these days of supply chain problems. Before an amplifier or a pair of speakers arrives in the reviewer's listening room. they may well have been used at show, in dealer's showrooms, or even spent time in another reviewer's systems. I think it only fair, therefore, to give an amplifier that has worse measured performance in one channel the other the benefit of the doubt.

And with the Gryphon Apex Stereo, the higher levels of noise and distortion in the left channel compared with the right were still low enough in absolute terms not to give rise to audible problems: https://www.stereophile.com/content/gryphon-apex-stereo-power-amplifier-measurements

Either statement is just plainly embarrassing from a "Technical Editor".


Let me give you another example of why your magazine is failing and why I have no faith anything you say.

The PS Audio Direct Stream DAC review from stereophile. https://www.stereophile.com/content/ps-audio-perfectwave-directstream-da-processor-measurements

In many ways, PS Audio's DirectStream DAC measures superbly well.

This is in total contrast to what Amir tested.

The fidelity loss here is apparent in both objective and subjective testing. There is nothing to hang your hat on hence the decapitated Pink Panther which leaves no room for such attire.

Needless to say, I cannot in any shape or form recommend the PerfectWave DirectStream DAC.

So NO John you cannot compare yourself to Amir or the way he tests equipment. That is what taking money from people to advertise their product does to the market under the guise of a detailed technical review. It always skews the result in favour of the the payer. In court that is often referred to as a bribe. Or at the very least "Cash for comment"

 

[noiseangel]

As for fobbing off value judgment responsibilities on Jim and Mikey, Mr. Austin, is never, ever ever going to write or say anything that will reawaken the slumbering nightmare of having to leave a decent job at a declining but still salary paying website and face the horror of having to write trade newspaper career content again.

Ah, but right here you are indeed commenting on its value, albeit in a fortune-cookie (or perhaps Pravda/Izvestia) kind of way. (And we who read your measurements page, which I've come to think of as a kind of after action review (AAR) of each review, appreciate it.)

As for fobbing off value judgment responsibilities on Jim and Mikey, Mr. Austin, is never, ever ever going to write or say anything that will reawaken the slumbering nightmare of having to leave a decent job at a declining but still salary paying website and face the horror of having to write trade newspaper career content again. A job which no longer exists, btw, at least not in a remunerative sense. (At least Jim has a good reason for doing what he's doing; I know the business and I can't fault him. I'd do the same thing myself. Why Herb Reichert is willing to verbally stroke expensive cables when he can't be getting more than $300 an article is beyond me. You'd have to pay me much more to debase my technical reputation.)

As for Mikey, well perhaps he'd be inclined to take a second mortgage to purchase a Gryphon, but he's probably pouring his sock-drawer pennies into Tracking Angle, which is technically not yet past its promised launch date ("Coming summer 2022"), but is sure cutting it close.

I would call that throwing your friends under the bus.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I never put words in your mouth, that was your mouth that opened not mine. Usually I hear that phrase when I have a witness in the box cornered like a rat, it's very strange hearing that coming from you as a defence. That is why I quoted what YOU said so you could not specifically use that phrase and yet you did. Read it anyway you want. Please don't compare yourself to Amir, who at the end of every set of measurements is man enough to offer an opinion as to whether or not he recommends the equipment under test. He has a spine that allows him to stand up. Fortunately for Gryphon and yourself Amir will never get to test this boat anchor and put another nail in the coffin.

Here are a few more words I never put in your mouth.

Your excuse for the poor performance of the amplifier in your "Review".


Your excuse for the poor performance of the amplifier on ASR.

Either statement is just plainly embarrassing from a "Technical Editor".


Let me give you another example of why your magazine is failing and why I have no faith anything you say.

The PS Audio Direct Stream DAC review from stereophile. https://www.stereophile.com/content/ps-audio-perfectwave-directstream-da-processor-measurements


This is in total contrast to what Amir tested.

So NO John you cannot compare yourself to Amir or the way he tests equipment. That is what taking money from people to advertise their product does to the market under the guise of a detailed technical review. It always skews the result in favour of the the payer. In court that is often referred to as a bribe. Or at the very least "Cash for comment"

I think you are being too harsh on JA here. In one sense the methodology at Stereophile has been the reviewer reviews the gear. He uses it, describes it, gives a subjective review. Then JA measures it. Their policy was the reviewer recommends it or not. And that hearing a device is what is important and the final arbiter of what good sound and good product was. By doing the measurements afterward, and not revealing them to the reviewer his opinions weren't tainted by the measurements for good or ill.

Now obviously this methodology is not one most at ASR would think a good one. Yet it is the one Stereophile has chosen. I don't think you can fault JA for that. A discussion about whether he thinks it has weaknesses vs some other method might make sense. I think JA has on more than a few occasions said he sees no correlation between measurements and subjective sound quality. I think most here could agree with that in regards to subjective reviewing. The hypothesis as to why that is the case likely differs between JA and most regulars at ASR. I personally over years went from more of JA's view of that to one aligned with objective measurements and how subjective reviewing is flawed knowing basics of psycho-acoustics.