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The Genesis GR360 came quite close to the Diablo on textures and truthfulness, was ever so slightly warmer and almost as resolved by clearly leaning in the same direction. The F5 too had the same gestalt and honesty while the Yamamoto obviously took the opposite direction of making music sound good even if it meant taking liberties and in some cases obscuring the qualities of the very best recordings. If the Yamamoto won on poorly recorded sopranos, the comparison brutally stopped when speaking of well-recorded voices. There the Diablo again rose above the fray. Whenever subtle nuances and inflections were recorded, the Gryphon amplifier would reproduce them more truthfully than any amplifier I know. Such a degree of transparency is quite amazing.
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Maxime Le Forestier’s Plutot Guitar is a disc with closely captured voices and acoustic guitars. I always thought that the A08s gave the very best rendition possible and in many ways it does but the Diablo conveyed even more information about the recording venue with small echoes and decays whilst simultaneously sharpening guitar transients and not losing anything in vocal intensity. It was actually while listening to this disc that I understood how the Diablo combined the best qualities of each of my amplifiers into one single event. Not that it sounded like a 45 SET but it gave up nothing in midrange intensity and credibility while doing so much else so much better - an F5 with A08s traits + unlimited power.
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The first question to anybody's mind when talking about electronics with a focus on absolute truth to how the event was recorded (which may be very different from how it was played) is whether emotions remain preserved or whether they get lost in an overdose of irrelevant data. Your mileage may vary but in my experience electronics that achieve a facsimile of utmost transparency through clever voicing, treble games and transient emphasis always fail the emotion test.
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Those with true transparency to the signal preserve whatever emotion was encoded by not altering anything. Whenever the master tape captured a special moment, it will be heard probably more clearly than ever. Spicing with second-order harmonic distortion adds flavor but it won't be the original flavor. In this continuum, I found the Diablo to be tremendously expressive and involved when emotions were present. I always use two radically different albums to assess this very elusive quality. If at the end of this test I do not feel like crying, the gear failed me (which of course requires the right mind set to start off with and being available to utterly submerge in the music). The first one is the second movement of Vivaldi's Concerto for Cello KV419. Each time I hear it, I can't help wonder what occurred in Vivaldi's life at that juncture. The music is so deep and sad and unlike his other work.
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The second is the Prayer Cycle by Jonathan Elias which in addition to being a tremendously well-recorded New Age vocal and instrumental piece carries all the weight of war and pain in its lyrics. Alanis Morisette’s and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s poignant voices add to the haunting children choirs for an experience you won’t want to have when depressed.
The Diablo passed the tear test by creating as deep a connection as I have ever experienced. When done right, transparency does not kill emotions. Au contraire. I experienced the same when reviewing Steve McCormack’s SMc Audio VRE-1 preamplifier, a component probably closest to the Diablo in being revelatory.
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I came into this review with some preconceived ideas. The first one was simply that I had always loved what I heard from Gryphon at shows. That expectation was only reinforced by the time I now spent with the Diablo. The second was that while I expected a great component, the cynic in me also envisioned little chance that I would actually hear enough of a difference to justify the price delta with my $2.000 Wyred4Sound STP-SE preamp and $3.000 FirstWatt F5. Here I was wrong. The Diablo was not only the better-looking component with the superior finish but also sonically even more accomplished. The gestalt of the two systems was very close but the Diablo with its real-life power almost always went beyond what my pre/power duo could do - more speed, more decay, more realism, more macrodynamics, greater instrumental textures and deeper and more controlled bass.
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Where I know the FirstWatt F5 for the amazing value it is and while I factor in how steep the curve of diminishing returns tends to get in hifi, I still must admit that the Diablo is worth its price of admission and then some. This makes it neither affordable nor best deal but here one encounters one of the few very high-end propositions where I would not be afraid to insist that you very much hear what you pay for.
When you consider that a Vitus integrated is far dearer yet only offers 20 watts; or think of the relatively higher price of darTZeel's integrated or Behold's or Boulder's; then the Diablo does seem to offer a lot for the euro (and hopefully one day again also for the $). It certainly demonstrated how my MA2275 integrated was not even close. I had initially thought to run the two integrateds face to face but very quickly gave up on the notion. The McIntosh is simply not in the same league.
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That said and money aside which will be the biggest hurdle for most—yours truly included— the Diablo is not for everybody. A component that is this transparent, linear and undistorted requires very careful matching both with the source and the speaker. Compatible sources are probably easier to come by as low-distortion high-resolution tonally saturated players are not that rare (think Gryphon's own or Cary and Esoteric to name a few obvious choices). The choice of speakers will be more critical. I was lucky that my Zu Audio Essence is tonally dense yet extremely dynamic to showcase those qualities of the Diablo. Even so, this clearly was no example of a common association. You will want speakers capable of great dynamics and transparency but not too bright or forward to avoid fatigue. You will want speakers capable of infinite midrange nuance to do the Diablo full justice. That's where my Zu falls a little short. Some of the newer Rockport designs would probably be a better match. You will also want speakers capable of deep and solid bass because the Diablo is extremely linear and lean by providing no upper bass reinforcement whatsoever. I suspect that when paired with monitor or bass-shy speakers, the overall tonal balance could quickly become top heavy (in those situations the Attila's more forgiving voicing might become preferable).
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For the past year our editor has looked for an amplifier he could call a high-power FirstWatt F5. The Diablo is that and more. No, it does not ooze amazing value like the F5. Perhaps one fine day he or I will find that unique amp which is affordable, phenomenal and powerful. For now the Diablo has become my reference in that quest. If you know Franck Tchang’s LiveLine cables from personal experience or reviews, think of the Diablo as a LiveLine interconnect with gain and drive. The Danish amp had the same transparency, the same unrestrained sense of dynamics and nuances, the same lean deep articulated bass, the same deep connection to the recorded event’s vitality. The Diablo is music on hyper drive - exhilarating yet amazingly refined and nuanced. At any price, that’s a very rare combination.
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Gryphon Attila |
I wish I’d heard more of the very high-end integrateds to make a final judgment call. I suspect that if I had, Gryphon’s Diablo might have walked off with a Lunar Eclipse award. It certainly eclipsed anything I knew before. Since I’m a little shy on relevant references, for now a Blue Moon Award will have to do. My highest recommendations go with it keeping in mind that the little Attila stable mate costs a third less, offers less power but is rumored to offer many of the Diablo's qualities with a touch of added warmth and forgiveness. That sounds like another winning recipe. For now though and a few more short weeks, I am savoring the amazing Diablo before it gets on its way again and joins the very short list of components I truly regretted to see depart.
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Quality of packing: Sufficient but not as sturdy as Esoteric's. Single box is surprising at this price.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Very heavy, mind your back.
Condition of component received: Flawless.
Quality of owner's manual: Very good, detailed and elegant.
Website comments: Very complete and informative.
Human interactions: Helpful and prompt.
Suggestions: For once I am short for words.
Remark: Amazingly transparent and truthful. The Diablo demands to be matched with components of the same pedigree, speaker matching will be particularly critical. The Diablo can drive almost any speaker but few will be able to show what it can truly do.
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Gryphon responds: We would like to take the opportunity to thank 6moons and Frederic Beudot
for his very positive review of our Gryphon Diablo. Naturally, all parents
love their babies. When they are praised in such a serious and insightful
way, we can only be prouder than ever.
Frederic was touching on an interesting point, namely the diversity one can
find in different reviews describing the tonal character of the Diablo.
The paradox is that it—to us—actually is proof that we are on the
right track. Only if a product has a strong personal sonic character (coloration) can it maintain a uniform sonic identical character in
different setups. We are essentially thriving for neutral performance in
our products, for good and for bad. The inevitable result is that the
"sound" will change depending on the rest of the setup. If there is no allowance made for this, most reviews or evaluations will end up being a test
of how well the products fit the existing system synergy rather than
what the product's own character (or lack thereof) is.
Frederic was clearly very aware of this and approached the Diablo
in an experienced and emphatic way.
Best wishes.
Flemming E. Rasmussen
CEO
Gryphon Audio Designs Aps |
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