Gryphon Diablo 300 Owner's Manual

Diablo 300

Owner´s Manual

v. 1

Table of Contents:

Introduction....................... 3

The Gryphon..................... 3

The Man............................ 4

Made in Denmark............. 4

Musical Objectives........... 5

The Gryphon Master Tape

Collection......................... 5

Design Principles............. 5

Exterior Design................ 8

Manufacture and Assembly. 8
Using Your Gryphon

AC Voltage........................ 9

Burn-in and Warm-up........ 9

Placement......................... 9

Menu Activated

functions........................... 9

Balanced Connections...... 15

Choice of Cables.............. 15

Care and Maintenance...... 14

Safety Instructions............. 16

Phono option..................... 17

DAC option....................... 18

Remote codes................... 19

Warranty/support............. 20

Introduction

Welcome to the global family of
proud owners of fine audio
components from Gryphon
Audio Designs of Denmark.
Your new Gryphon unit has
been painstakingly designed to
re-create the sound of live
music taking place in its origi­nal recorded space. Every
Gryphon product is designed
to cater to the needs of the most
discerning music enthusiast
with sumptuous styling and
superb user-friendliness which
elevate it above the
mundane world of con­ventional audio compo­nents.

As audiophiles, the
members of the Gryphon
design team are constantly
reminded to keep their priori­ties straight. We are not
involved in “hi-fi” for its own
sake, but strictly as a means to
an end, in the service of our
life-long love of the live music
experience in all its sonic and
emotional glory.

Our higher goal is to bring to
the listener a “You-Are-There”
sensation. In taking up this
challenge, the Gryphon
designers go back to basics to
analyze the essential nature of
the live music experience. For

us, an awareness of soundstag­ing, ambience and concert hall
dimensions are necessary com­ponents. Dynamics and an
unambiguous sense of instru­ment location even in the loud­est passages are also high pri­orities. To achieve these objec­tives, Gryphon products offer
exceptional speed and agility
along with seamless coherence
in the time domain.

Since 1985, Gryphon Audio
Designs has quietly gone about
the business of creating fine

home audio components.
We know that you will
appreciate and enjoy the
benefits of our accumu­lated experience and
share our abiding pas-

sion for music.

The Gryphon

In Greek mythology: A fabled
creature, half-lion and half­eagle, combining the power of
the “King of Beasts” with the
grace of the “King of Birds”. The
guardian of the source of gold
and protector of the Dionysian
cup of infinite wealth.
In the real world: An acclaimed
Danish audio engineering com­pany employing cutting edge
technology and common sense
in the pursuit of the purest
musical experience. We feel

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that the gryphon is an appro­priate symbol for our high
sonic goals.

The Man

Gryphon Audio Designs is the
brainchild of Flemming E.
Rasmussen and the fulfillment
of a lifelong dream to allow the
purest essence of the live music
experience to be recreated in
the home environment.

Rasmussen holds a degree in
painting and graphic arts from
the Aarhus Art Academy,
Denmark. During his studies,
Rasmussen developed close
relationships with the local
music community and
designed many LP covers and
concert posters. After gradua­tion, he taught photography
and painting and designed tex-

tiles, before founding 2R
Marketing, which quickly
became Denmark’s leading
High End audio import compa­ny.

Gryphon Audio Designs was
founded in 1985 as an offshoot
of 2R Marketing, The first prod­uct, the now legendary
Gryphon Head Amp, grew from
a one-off spare time project
developed only for the design­ers’ own home systems.
Although the Gryphon project
was initially strictly a hobby, not
an actively pursued commer­cial venture, demand generat­ed by reviews and word-of­mouth led to the formal estab­lishment of Gryphon Audio
Designs as a separate corpo­rate entity.
Following the immediate suc­cess of the Gryphon brand, all
import business was phased
out in 1993, so that Rasmussen
could dedicate his efforts
entirely to Gryphon.

Made In
Denmark

Every product from Gryphon
Audio Designs is designed and
built in Denmark. This is much
more than just a geographical
fact. It is also a seal of approval,
a stamp of quality. Living in a

The Gryphon Head Amp 1985

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region with no natural
resources (no oil, coal, precious
metals, etc.), the Danes have
learned to rely on their quick
wits and skilled hands.
Innovative technology, beautiful
craftsmanship, pride in one’s
craft and a keen eye for attrac­tive design are some of the
long-standing Danish traditions
which are distilled to their
finest essence in every unit that
bears the Gryphon name.

Musical
Objectives

While scientific method and
sophisticated technology play
an important role in our elec­tronics design work, at
Gryphon we never lose sight of
the fact that the keen ears of an
experienced listener are the
most crucial “calibration tools.”
Therefore, every Gryphon
product exists for one simple
purpose: to bring the user clos­er in the never-ending quest for
a more natural and convincing
musical illusion.

Every Gryphon design has
been built to cruise effortlessly
through even the most demand­ing musical passages, regard­less of volume level, with a
musical presentation defined
by supreme articulation and

immediacy, subtle dynamic
shading and razor-sharp focus.
Refinement and delicacy are
combined with power and
authority for a natural, involv­ing listening experience.

The Gryphon
Master Tape
Collection

In the Gryphon listening rooms,
we have over the years used a
unique library original master
tapes of recordings made dur­ing the Golden Age of studio
engineering from 1956-1976.
Unlike conventional commer­cial releases, the master tapes
capture the dynamic contrasts
and subtle inner harmonic
structure of the musical event,
forcing us to work to a higher
standard in our efforts to main­tain the integrity of the original
musical performance.

Design
Principles

With state of the art technical
equipment and some of the
finest minds in the audio engi­neering field at our disposal,
the Gryphon brand name con­tinues to define the highest
audiophile standards of subjec-

Gryphon is located in beautiful tranquil sur­roundings.

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The house of Gryphon, this is where all
Gryphon products are developed.
Manufacturing is in the hands of a
select number of highly specialized dan­ish companies.
We take the ”Made in Denmark” very
seriously.

tive and technical perform­ance.
The dual mono configuration
radically eliminates any possi­bility of crosstalk or other inter­ference between channels and
provides infinite channel sepa­ration which contributes to the
ability to create space, focus,
depth and transparency.

Because the electrical power
coming out of your wall fluctu­ates wildly in terms of voltage
and distortion, Gryphon incor­porates heavily regulated
multi-stage power supplies that
act as effective mains condi­tioning filters. Displays and
control circuits are fed by a
separate power supply to iso­late any digital noise artifacts
and effectively prevent them
from contaminating the signal
path.

While the printed circuit
boards in more conventional
audio products, utilize conduc­tor tracks a mere 35 um thick,
Gryphon employs at least 70
um traces of the highest purity.

Beginning with our very first
product, “The Head Amp” all
Gryphon products have fea­tured extremely wide frequen­cy bandwidth, because the
ability to reproduce ultra-sonic
frequencies with no difficulty

ensures linear phase across the
audible frequency range.

The implementation of circuits
with wideband frequency
response is a painstaking
endeavor in which the actual
layout and ground pattern of
the PC boards are crucial to the
achievement of superior sonic
performance with no loss of
inherent stability.

Wideband frequency response
ensures the high slew rate
essential to the realistic han­dling of the ultra-fast transients
which routinely occur in live
music and is crucial in recreat­ing the natural decay of musical
instruments. Wide bandwidth
also improves phase character­istics, for more correct sound­staging and imaging.

All Gryphon designs are real­ized with an absolute minimum
of negative feedback, which
when present in large amounts
can actually increase TIM dis­tortion. All Gryphon preampli­fiers are designed with zero
negative feedback. Gryphon
power amplifiers apply nega­tive feedback judiciously for
improved linearity and band­width.

Gryphon research into the
detrimental effects of magneti-

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