GRYPHON EOS 2
Floorstanding loudspeakers
Subjectively speaking, the EOS 2 is a beautiful showpiece of industrial design. The ‘Stealth’ colourway with all the blacks on blacks looks gorgeous and reminds me of the golden era of the Japanese hifi, just blackened. The inspiration from Sonus Faber for string grille removes any visual disturbances, and thus the EOS 2 is a great candidate for the best looking two-way floorstander ever. If you prefer more vivid colours, it is available in racing red too.
Funkce a forma
The Gryphon EOS 2 are remarkably compact speakers for small homes, thus fitting a shopping list of anyone considering a stand-mounted speaker. At the height of 1 meter and its tapered shape, it looks unobtrusive, yet makes a statement. There were two features that caught my eye immediately. First, almost always the tendency is to get the acoustic centres of tweeter and midbass driver as close as possible to make phasing easier, as well as to get to the one-point source radiation pattern. These Gryphons have both the drivers quite apart, 20cm, more than it is actually necessary. Irrespective of that, the sound is as coherent as any other good speaker out there. Second, there is a bolted round lid on the speaker’s baffle. The lid hides another bass reflex port and the owner can decide (depending on the room acoustics and the speaker placement within it), whether he prefers running the speaker with the front port or the standard port in the back. Both reflex ports are connected to the EOS 2’s midbass driver via internal guide to acoustically filter out bands above 80Hz. The dual ported design is a smart option, and I am wondering why we don’t see it more often.
Nízké frekvence
The Gryphon EOS 2 promise deep bass (starting at 26Hz) in the specification sheet; sometimes the specs do not lie and this is the case – the EOS 2 can play impressively deep bass for their size. The Gryphon electronics was always on the darker side of force and thus rather heavy handed, yet it never lacked the detail and suppleness. The same holds true for the EOS 2, which provide rich, saturated, and thick sound, that has a sort of elasticity and assurance. I cannot think of better experience analogy than driving a Rolls Royce. It is not a racing car; it is all about comfort and luxury. As a result, the EOS 2 don’t throw sounds at the listener, they modulate them in a very noble manner, so the music arrives with soft impact, yet with power.
Antonio Forcione Quartet recorded a live performance at The Trinity Centre for Naim label, called In Concert. The sound through the EOS 2 is impressive and the recording soundstage is clearly laid. By the way - if in doubt about what you are hearing, it is easy to check the recording on DVD for where the musicians were in the soundstage. A minute into #3 track (Tears of Joy), a violoncello appears. This cello was absolutely mesmerizing through the Gryphon EOS 2. It was rendered three-dimensionally as if it materialized in the room, there was a perfect balance between strings and body, it was just there. It was as if the EOS 2 were built for this instrument.
Čistota rozlišení
The EOS 2’s driver compartment comprises of a 7.5” (190mm) mid-woofer with a carbon fibre laminated cone, and a 1.34” (34mm) beryllium dome. For the crossover, Gryphon got inspired by Sonus Faber’s “progressive slope” topology, which means high-order filtering with the slopes becoming exponentially steeper the farther they are from the crossover point of 2.2kHz. The EOS 2 have sensitivity of 89dB and impedance of 6 ohms that drops below 4 ohms at 128Hz.
The EOS 2 comes with massive spikes mounted on its metal base. If you prefer not to use the spikes (e.g. not to damage the floor), spike shoes are included. Although I did not experiment with any aftermarket isolation feet in this review, I’d bet all my money that sooner or later it’d be worth replacing this stock solution with a better sounding one. Gryphon remains to be sort of old school (or is it too much self-confidence?) in this matter and sees no point in trying to improve the already perfect product.
Tonální věrnost
Gryphon recommends listening to the EOS 2 from at least 3m and provides detailed description of how to balance the highs by toe-/n/out and tilt. The largish tweeter dome provides effortlessness that is heard especially on vocals, yet with some hotter material it may be perhaps too agile. I consider Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits) such a material. Although this album contributed to the rise of digital recording and it helped usher CD format, and although it is still massively used at hifi shows as an audiophile standard, I would not put it in any 100 best recordings list. Musically it is pleasing, sonically it is a typical product of its time. So, I get to find out how to make So Far Away more pleasant through the Gryphon.
Fortunately, the EOS 2 included extra resistors in the signal path of the tweeter, and they can be switched by a toggle switch just above the speaker terminals; it is possible to have highs either with no attenuation or to attenuate them in 2 steps. The changes are subtle, don´t expect the same effect as when tone controls are used. With maximum attenuation the sparkle of So Far Away was not tamed entirely, but the track become much more balanced. Other music material may require the very opposite and it may benefit from added sparkle – the EOS 2 let you do that by flipping the switch.
Prostorovost
The Gryphon EOS 2 are designed to provide big sound in compact body. With eyes closed, I´d swear I was listening to much larger cabinets and drivers. The only way to show the limitations of a two-way design with a small mid-bass driver is to crank the volume up. The EOS 2 continue to impress by its deep bass and enveloping sound, yet they also become audibly stressed and lose part of their composure. How loud they can be played and whether you will get to this breaking point will depend on your domestic conditions and listening habits. Also, bear in mind, the EOS 2 are not designed for large spaces.
The EOS 2 is a very special loudspeaker, and it is not easy to classify. It offers the visual of a F1 racing monopost, yet it provides limousine experience. To describe the sound you will do with words like beauty, depth, embrace, warmth, comfort. It means there is definitely a sort of signature to how the EOS 2 sounds. However, as a whole, it works surprisingly well. For the third time in this review I will use Sonus Faber’s analogy: with SF one buys a beautiful piece of furniture with nice and smooth sound; with this Gryphon one buys a beautiful piece of industrial design with nice and smooth sound. This is a luxury stuff…
Připojené komponenty
- Sources: Gryphon Ethos, Audionet Planck
- Amplifiers: Gryphon Diablo 333
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Gryphon Vanta
- Power conditioning: Gryphon Vanta
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