Gryphon Kalliope User Manual

Kalliope

Owner´s Manual

Table of Contents:

Introduction 3
Burn-in and warm-up 9
Choice of cables 9
Unpacking 10
User instructions 11
Display information 12
Menu Guide 14
Kalliope connections 15
Warranty 18

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 user­friendliness 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

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of creating fine home
audio components. We
know that you will appre­ciate and enjoy the bene­fits of our accumulated
experience and share our
abiding passion for music.

The Gryphon

In Greek mythology: A
fabled creature, half-lion
and half-eagle, 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 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 textiles, 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

The Gryphon Head Amp 1985

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Flemming E. Rasmussen painting 1967

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
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.

Gryphon is located in beautiful tranquil
surroundings.

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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 are fortunate to
possess a unique library
of more than 1,000 origi­nal master tapes of
recordings made during
the Golden Age of studio
engineering from 1956-

1976.

Unlike conventional com­mercial releases, our 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 subjec­tive 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

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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 ultra­sonic frequencies with no
difficulty ensures linear
phase across the audible
frequency range.