Gryphon Mojo User Manual

Owner´s Manual
The Gryphon Mojo
Speaker System
Version 1.1 July 1 2009
Pronunciation [moh-joh] –noun, plural -jos, -joes.
1. the art or practice of casting magic spells; magic; voodoo.
2. an object, as an amulet or charm, that is believed to carry a magic spell.
Mojo set-up, top view
RW = Room width
This is only a suggestion to a starting point for experiments, it is not a mandatory set-up.
“If it sounds good - it is good”
The Gryphon Mojo monitor system
Welcome to our world
Words by Flemming E. Rasmussen, CEO and Founder of Gryphon Audio Designs
Two decades have passed since the first Gryphon saw the light of day. It wasn't a case of planned parenthood, more an inevitable love child ­the fruit of a long-standing love affair with music and audio.
Gryphon embarked on a long journey back then, made long not by detours, but simply because our destination is so far away. I have always be­lieved that we experience music with our hearts as much as with our ears. For me, the ultimate test is very simple ­the music must reach out and touch the heart. Looking back over the years, I must confess that Gryphon has always developed the audio products that I personally needed and wanted. Nothing was ever built to meet a demand de­fined by market research. Some might find that arrogant and perhaps it is, but I prefer to see it as an honest ap­proach, while accepting that not everyone shares my point of view.
Fortunately, the passing years have proven that there is a sufficiently large group of like­minded individuals around the world who have come toge­ther in this common quest.
I would like to take this oppor­tunity to personally thank all of you who have shared this journey with me. Down through the years, Gryphon has expanded from a single Head Amplifier to encompass the full audio spectrum with the definitive music playback system. This didn't happen because we can do everything ourselves, but because we recognize quality when we encounter it and have the ability to assemble a team of dedicated specialists for each new project. The Gryphon company - like its products - is greater than the sum of its parts.
There is certainly a family resemblance across the Gryphon range and by that we mean more than mere tech­nology. We like to think that Gryphon is not perceived as Class A amplifiers, upsampling CD players or silver cables, but more as a degree of quali­ty, a sense of "rightness" that brings it all home for you. And you don't reach that place by following your ears, only by following your heart.
In responding to queries as to why Gryphon took the major step of expanding into the field of loudspeaker design, the temptation is to take the easy way out with a flippant reply like "Because it's there." But the simple fact is that, having earned a global repu­tation for unsurpassed excel­lence in amplification, it was a natural evolutionary move to broaden our scope and turn our attention to the other links in the audio chain.
Flemming E. Rasmussen Gryphon founder and CEO
Beginning with source compo­nents, Gryphon designed the world's first single-chassis CD player with onboard upsamp­ling. The third generation of this innovative technology, the Gryphon Mikado, has won numerous awards around the world. The next logical step was to apply the uncompromi­sing Gryphon take-no-priso­ners approach to the final link in the chain. But this decision was by no means made on the spur of the moment.
In fact, the Gryphon speaker adventure began nearly 18 years ago with a chance encounter between Gryphon founder Flemming E. Rasmussen and Steen Duelund, a Danish mathema­tician who has dedicated his professional life to loudspea­ker theory.
Duelund's theories on con­stant phase in crossover net­works can be summed up in a single statement: "All drivers must be in phase at all times at all frequencies." Following this theoretical "Eureka," the hard part then becomes making that happen in a real room with a real loudspeaker. Initially on a strictly informal basis, an in-depth exploration was undertaken that would take full advantage of Gryphon's assembled exper­tise and extensive experience in design and manufacturing to transform Duelund's theor­ies into real-world products with scant regard for such minor details as pricing, parts availability, prevailing attitudes and preconceived notions.
Steen Duelund passed away in 2005 but the rest of the ori­ginal design team implement his ideas and spirit, as much as possible, in every Gryphon speaker project. Duelund left a unique library of reference recordings to Gryphon CEO Flemming E. Rasmussen. These recordings are still used in all projects, allowing us to imagine what the old master would had said.
Mojo design observations
As with all things known to man, loudspeakers are sub­ject to the laws of physics and to the limitations of human perception. We may bend, manipulate or mask or exploit these laws and limitations, but we cannot ignore them.
In the quest for the finest speaker, music lovers audition numerous models and finally settle on what they believe to be the “best” speaker. What else can you do? But is the “best speaker” truly the best speaker? If you are lucky, you will end up with a speaker that is the best match for a parti­cular room, a speaker that might be a complete disaster when set up in a different room. This explains the differ­ences in opinion about speak­er performance. The perfor­mance/quality of any given speaker changes radically, depending on its environment.
Steen Duelund 1943 -2005
Lars Matthisen, Chief Acoustic adviser at Gryphon, carrier of the Duelund flame.
In general, a loudspeaker can be no better than the listening room allows it to be.
Therefore, the listening room is the most important element in a high performance sound system and for this reason is often referred to as the final frontier. Few people have the luxury of a dedicated, pur­pose-built listening room. Most of us listen to music in a room that also serves as the living room. There are several ways to address this challenge. Here are the most common “solutions”…
A. The room can be treated in several ways by using passive and/or active absorbents, bass traps, diffusers and other devices. Unfortunately, these methods are usually expen­sive, an eyesore in the living room and of limited success. In most cases, they simply change the flavor of the prob­lem.
B. In recent years, sophisticated “room correction systems” have been introduced. The term Room Correction is quite misleading insofar as none of these systems actually correct the room in any real sense. They electronically manipulate the sound of the audio system in order to obtain a better measured match to the room, much like previous genera­tions of equalizers that merely changed the tonal balance of the sound. Unfortunately, they typically introduced a whole new set of problems and are
not usually used in high end sound systems. Lastly, a num­ber of correction systems are basically computers that digi­tally manipulate the sound for the same reasons. These sys­tems are more sophisticated and can address the task with great precision. However, many critical listeners agree that the digital conversions and extensive signal manipu­lation involved have a high price, and not just the one on the price tag.
C. The most popular solution is to experiment and mix pro­ducts with different flavors and especially to seek out a speaker that has a comple­mentary sonic signature to that of the listening room. At best, “neutral” performance is obtained by forces reacting in different directions, hoping for tonal equilibrium. This is an art approaching alchemy and the proud owner’s fragile house of cards collapses if any of the components, especially the listening room, is changed. For many audiophiles, this ongoing quest to find the sonic Holy Grail through con­stant experimentation is what it is all about.
Most music lovers simply want to listen to great music with great sound without needless hassle.
Bass performance
The most severe problems usually occur in the bass region, typically due to designers’ over-imaginative attempts to circumvent the laws of physics. Most people
prefer a speaker with full fre­quency response from the del­icate high-frequency shimmer of a triangle to the lowest notes of a church organ. All speakers should ideally pro­vide superior high frequency performance, but speakers with full output at low fre­quencies require large drivers and consequently large cabi­nets with huge internal vol­ume. Low frequencies also require movement of large amounts of air in the room. There is little to be done about these physical facts, as long as we look at the loud­speakers in isolation.
Another often overlooked fact is that, although a speaker may be capable of extended deep bass performance, its performance can be easily compromised by adverse room conditions. This is a fact that cannot be changed, and when a large speaker is used in a room that is too small, room overload occurs and the compressed air expands like waves in water. This is caused/supported by an acoustic phenomenon called “room gain”, the room’s automatic amplification of lower frequencies by 12 dB per octave. The result is what is generally termed “standing waves”. This acoustic amplification of bass is heard as an over­whelming emphasis on the lower frequencies. In audio lingo it is referred to as a “boomy” bass. This type of bass may impress some friends and annoy neighbors but it can hardly be described as high end sound
and is certainly not acceptable to the educated listener.
Smaller Speakers
Many people prefer compact speakers because they usually do not suffer from these prob­lems, but only because their small enclosure and drivers cannot generate enough ener­gy to provide deep bass and consequently excite the room. The smaller speaker often has superior midrange and high frequency response simply because the smaller enclosure provides ideal working condi­tions. Smaller speakers also often offer a superior sound­stage, allowing the speaker to disappear as the soundstage extends well beyond the phys­ical positions of the speakers. The generally smaller drivers are faster and reproduce tran­sients and details without the delay and “overhang” often found in larger drivers. Again, there are no free lunches and the trade-offs with the small speaker are reduced bass and lower maxi­mum output than larger speakers.
Critical listeners with vast experience in listening to dif­ferent speakers often com­ment that they wish that they could combine the sound­stage, disappearing act and speed of the small speaker with the bass response of the larger speaker.
At Gryphon we have over the years made similar observa­tions and faced the challenge of small rooms at shows and elsewhere. We are often asked what speakers we use
and which speakers we rec­ommend. Our answer has always been that we recom­mend the speaker that sounds best in the room in which it will be used. When we use the term “best” we mean correct and realistic in musical terms, essentially neutral, but with all the dynamics and excitement of listening to live music. We find headroom, ambience and tonal coherency to be key ele­ments in the live music expe­rience.
The Gryphon Mojo monitors
The Cabinet
In order to live up to the uncompromising design goal of perfect phase all the time at all frequencies, the enclosure incorporates a concave curved front to form a direct angled, time-aligned system with identical distance from the lis­tener to the acoustic center of each driver. This is the only way of ensuring true time alignment while maintaining direct on-axis sound from the drivers. It is not seen as often as the usual sloped front that is much less complicated and expensive to make.
The Bass Driver
We decided to use two 6 inch drivers rather than one large driver. This provides greater surface area while maintaing high driver speed with mini­mum lag and overhang. This also allows a narrower front, minimising baffle dif­fraction. The drivers employ pulp paper cones, chosen for excel-
lent linearity and controlled behaviour outside its operating range, eliminating invasive correction to reduce the negative effects of cone break-up. The die-cast basket is a very rigid, but open, structure preventing compression of the air mass behind the cone. Even the area behind the spider is ventilated, allowing the spider to work freely. These qualities are basics in the Duelund/Gryphon design philosophy of designing and building the “correct” drivers rather than “fixing it in the mix,” as is often the case. - for obvious economical reasons.
The Tweeter
By unfair tradition, the twee­ter is always the star of the show. To much focus is often placed on an exotic tweeter that may be outstanding, but being the star, often fails to play along with the rest of the band. At Gryphon we believe in an “all star” approach. To qualify, each driver must be able and willing to join the team to create a complete, seamless speaker with uni­form performance across the band, not only in terms of fre­quency but just as much in its subjective nature and ap­proach to the task. In this case, we do use a truly exotic tweeter that was the natural star without being “forced” into the concept. The Tweeter is an Air Motion Transformer unit with a extremely light metal dia­phragm, providing lightning fast response combined with flat frequency response up and beyond 38kHz with extremely
The speaker terminals are Gryphon's proprietary 5 way terminals used on Gryphon products such as the Poseidon and Colloseum products.
The Mojo basic stand
The mojo stand places the speaker at the correct height for most people. We recommend filling the stand with sand for added mass and damping. A set of adjustable spikes with coasters are also provided, en­suring an effective evacuation path for vibration.
low distortion and with a total absence of compression. A categegory of tweeter rare­ly found in monitor-sized speak­er systems.
The Crossover
The Mojo crossover is a show­case of carefully chosen or pur­pose manufactured compo­nents. The extreme Graphite resistors from Duelund Coherent Audio, hand-made inductors from the famous Danish Jensen company and excellent low-memory, precision capa­citors from Germany are all hardwired with special Teflon hard-insulated silver solder. Parts such as the entirely hand-made Duleund resistors and the Jensen inductors are components rarely found in commercial speakers because of their
pro-
hibiti-
ve cost,
but they
are well known
and used in the
hardcore DIY communi-
ty. Due to the intrinsic
high pass roll off of the rib-
bon tweeter, the filter is fourth order for the tweeter and the bass units to ensure phase continuity at all frequencies.
Jensen paper/oil inductor
Duelund graphite resistor
Mojo crossover / back plate
Owner's Manual
When you purchase the Mojo system, your authorized Gryphon dealer delivers and installs it. His staff has been meticulously schooled in the proper unpacking and set-up of the system. Your dealer will return after a two-week break-in period for final adjustment. This service is included in the price of the Mojo system and is crucial to optimizing system performance.
The Listening Room
This section outlines ideal room dimensions and speaker placement. Specific acoustic conditions may permit some deviation from these recom­mendations. The Mojo´s cur­ved baffle is designed so that the sound from all drivers
integrates at a point 5 m in front of the high frequency driver. (Think of the drivers as rows of spotlights all angled to illuminate the same spot.) The cabinerts should be at least 1 m from any side wall. We recommend as much dis­tance from the back wall as possible.
Imagine a circle on the floor at a diameter of 10 meters with the listener in the middle. The Mojo should be set up along the edge of this circle, forcing all the drivers to point directly at the listener at a dis­tance of 5 meters. This is the basic design formula and not all locations will allow this. We have tested Mojo in a number of different room sizes from very small rooms to halls. What is important in all cases is to set the speakers up toed-in pointing directly at the listener.
Note: plush furnishings pro­vide high acoustic damping, requiring greater system out­put. Mojo was developed in a 50 sq.m. room with typical acoustic damping correspon­ding to most modern residen­tial spaces.
We do NOT recommend room treatments for added damping behind the loudspeakers. Some damping behind the lis­tening position is recommen­ded, especially if it is close to the rear wall.
Diffusion is generally a far better acoustic solution in that it removes unwanted reflec­tions without restricting dyna­mics or exerting excessive influence on tonal balance. Because Mojo design requires angling the cabinets in towards the listener, the influ­ence of side walls is minimal. The curved baffles also reduce reflections from floor and cei­ling. If the ceiling is low, a dif­fuser placed at the point of the first reflection may be useful. A rug on the floor be­tween listener and speakers will help. The conventional coffee table in front of the lis­tener is typically the source of most problems with unwanted reflections.
We strongly suggest that all effort are made to optimize the acoustic properties of the room before any electronic manipulation (room correction) is considered. - (electronics cannot correct a room, they can only manipulate the sound to compensate for poor acoustics).
We consider this to be the last resort. Because of its design and comprehensive adaptability, Mojo is nowhere near as demanding as other speakers. However, because of Mojo´s extreme phase linearity, you will discover that it is more revealing than any other loud­speaker this size. Be prepared for a radical revi­sion of everything you had previously learned about loud­speakers or heard from them.
Set-Up
Mojo is designed to form two hemispheres - one horizontal and one vertical. The vertical hemisphere is defined by the curvature of the front baffle. The cabinets must be angled in so that they are aimed at the same point (ear level for a centrally placed listener), for­ming a curve in front of the listener.
PROPER PLACEMENT IS CENTRAL TO THE Duelund CON­CEPT AND REQUIRES PATIENCE AND ATTENTION. TRADITIONAL WISDOM IS NOT THE ANSWER HERE.
The difference between the merely outstanding and the ultimate is a fine line.
Break-in
The Mojo requires at least 100 hours of break-in. Do NOT use special break-in discs. Often, they tend to result in break­down instead. Choose dyna­mic music instead. Heavy metal is a popular choice for burn-in purposes, ...
Tweeter tuning
Sometimes, room acoustics may require a slight adjust­ment of HF levels to obtain seamless presentation. WE would not consider a potentio­meter - ruining the fantastic performance of the tweeter. Instead, the Mojo is fitted with a set of Duelund Graphite resistors on the back of the speaker, protected under a steel bar. The extra resistors are in the box with accessories. The resistors are placed in the clips and the leads connected to the black terminals. Be careful not to break the resis­tors and make sure that the
leads are not short circui­ted to the back plate or the other resistor.
Default setting/neutral: R1 = 10 Ohm R2 = 22 Ohm
Low setting: (-0.5 dB) R1 = 22 Ohm R2 = 10 Ohm
High setting: R1 = 5.6 Ohm R2 = Empty
Tweak alert
Mojo is the fruit of an extre­mely protracted, very open­minded development process. We assure you that it is not possible to improve this sys­tem by replacing a few lengths of wire or a capacitor.
The Mojo stand
The Mojo stand assembly is very easy. We recomend the use of the enclosed spikes and coasters to ensure optimal coupling to the floor even on
carpets. The stand should be assembled with the hole in the column facing up. This alows filling of sand to add weight to the stand (IMPOR-
TANT).
The enclosed silicone micro feet should be attached on top of the stand, to protect the speaker cabinet from scratches and sliding.
Maintenance:
Mojo is available in two distinctive painted finishes:
1. Standard finish in the revo­lutionary new soft feel ure­thane, developed for Mercedes Benz dashboards and other interior finishes in their luxury cars. The paint is mat with a extremely soft feel to the touch. In contrast to normal matt paint the soft-feel is very strong and only requires occa­sional dusting or wiping with a moist cloth. Do not use any chemicals or solvents. Do not place any object permanently on top of the speaker cabinet. NEVER wax or polish soft feel.
2. Custom paint in semigloss two-pack automotive paint with a very hard surface. Use same cleaning method as the soft feel surface.
Mojo Speaker system per­formance:
Frequency response: 37 Hz -40,000 Hz Room dependent
X-over freq: 2000 Hz 4th order
Sensitivity: 89 db /2.8V
Nominal impedance: 4 Ohm
Power handling: 200 Watts
Dimensions: W: 20 cm D: 42 cm H: 52 cm
Shipping weight: Cabinet: 22.5 kg Stand: 17.7 kg
Enjoy
Flemming E. Rasmussen and the Mojo design crew take immense satisfaction in this new addition to the history of the company.
When the privileged owner of the Mojo sits back and experi­ences how music rises above technology as walls fade away and a direct connection is made to the very souls of the performers, we know that our work is done and we take great pride in it.
We have made the loudspea­kers disappear, leaving in their place the only thing that really matters... Music.
Warranty
The Gryphon Mojo is warranted against failures arising
through faulty workmanship and materials for a period of 3
years from date of purchase. The warranty is not transferable.
This warranty is only valid in the country where the product
was purchased. All claims under this warranty must be made
to the distributor in the buyer`s country by returning the unit
securely packed in the original box with all accessories, posta-
ge/freight prepaid and insured. The unit will be repaired or
replaced at no charge for parts and labor.
This warranty remains valid only if the serial number of the
unit has not been defaced or removed and if repairs are per-
formed only by authorized Gryphon dealers or distributors. It
does not cover damage due to misuse, accident or neglect.
The distributor or manufacturer, Gryphon Audio Designs,
Denmark, retains the exclusive right to make such judgement
on the basis of inspection.
The retailer, distributor or manufacturer of the Gryphon shall
not be liable for consequential damage arising from the use,
misuse or failure of this product, including injuries to persons
or property.
To qualify, the enclosed warranty registration card must be fil-
led out and returned to the manufacturer within 10 days of
purchase.
Alternatively, you may choose to register your Gryphon on our
website:
www.gryphon-audio.com
Notes:
Serial number: Purchase date: Color:
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