Gryphon 300 - one month later

AJR said:
Ken,

Separately, when is your G1 clock arriving. You must be excited.
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Disappointed is more like it. It was lost in shipping. It looks like another one will need to be ordered from Japan if it doesn’t turn up very shortly.

Ken
 
My Gryphon is on 3 Stillpoint SS Ultra's. That is all.

I've got 4 on each speaker - they made a staggering difference in that department.
 
..actually I should illuminate. The amp sits on a big, heavy lump of oak kitchen work surface which I cut to size. I just wanted an excuse to buy a circular saw. This sits on the Stillpoints which sit on my wooden floor. As we all know wood vibrates. A lot. They do work but I can't comment on whether they do so with the Gryphon - I put it straight onto them and it's too damn heavy to mess with, now. But, the Vitus RI100 benefited, with SQ becoming a little better focused, defined. I don't think it was wishful thinking. As a result everything else is on sorbothane hillocks and I've just got Iso tek pucks for the TT. (All my gear sits on a wood cabinet..)
 
Wow - AJR, at vol 30 I'd be blowing the doors off my room. Wish my ears could still handle it, though! Incidentally I've just plugged in a new power chord made from Furutech FP-3TS20 cable. It's made an immediate difference with bigger bass and higher frequency definition/realism; players/instruments coming further into the room; noise floor has obviously dropped. (It was made from the last metre of a 5m length - the other 4m are going to replace the wire in my dedicated radial which currently sounds worse than the main house ring.) Anyway, relevant point is the Gryphon responds in a pretty obvious way to power and signal cable changes..
 
Dguitarnut said:
I have had the pleasure of auditioning both in my system. The Diablo 300 I had in house with my week old S3Mk2 and then the 120 about a month and a half later. The 120 was the one that convinced me to go with Gryphon. Could have been the speakers were better broken in.
I do listen mostly at lower volume. The 300 is overkill for my needs but what the heck!
Sorta like dating 2 beautiful sisters and deciding on the one with the bigger bass. It’s all about the bass ! :P
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Larry, just love fact there are some musicians in the forum, pretty much getting the priorities right [emoji3].

You want to hear my shortest musician joke: two musicians are walking past a bar...


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Alpinist said:
Disappointed is more like it. It was lost in shipping. It looks like another one will need to be ordered from Japan if it doesn’t turn up very shortly.

Ken
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Sorry to hear. Would be keen to learn more about the clock thing, as soon it arrives.


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Does anyone have any thoughts on whether there is a point at which the Diablo should be ‘turned-down’ (or even turned off) to prevent degradation/damage? I suppose it may depend on how hard it is being asked to work? So for example, will 2 continuous hours of listening at volume 24 driving a 4ohm speaker load have any negative effect on the long term performance of it? If not, how abou 4 hours, or 6 hours? There must be SOME degradation. Just not sure what the curve looks like.
 
Another variable migh be volume. I turned the volume down from 24 to 18 but after 30 minutes I have not noticed a significant reduction in the heat coming off the Diablo.
 
AJR said:
Another variable migh be volume. I turned the volume down from 24 to 18 but after 30 minutes I have not noticed a significant reduction in the heat coming off the Diablo.
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90% of the input power in class A is being disseminated as heat, not as music output. When you turn the volume up the amp is moving from Class A to Class A/B. Latter is able to leverage the power input better and thus generates less heat. As you most probably already are out of Class A in the 18-24 range there is not so much difference in heat dissemination.

Class A amplification sounds good, but is very inefficient [emoji3].


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Thanks Kuoppis. Answers part of my question. Let’s assume I stay in class A. How many consecutive listening hours will start to trigger increased degredation of the amp? Or maybe it doesn’t work that way. I may be barking up a non-tree here!
 
AJR said:
Does anyone have any thoughts on whether there is a point at which the Diablo should be ‘turned-down’ (or even turned off) to prevent degradation/damage? I suppose it may depend on how hard it is being asked to work? So for example, will 2 continuous hours of listening at volume 24 driving a 4ohm speaker load have any negative effect on the long term performance of it? If not, how abou 4 hours, or 6 hours? There must be SOME degradation. Just not sure what the curve looks like.
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I first let my Diablo run at a modest volume for 100 hours. After that, I unplugged it completely for a night. Then back on the next two days for about 48 hours, then off and unplugged again.

I never pushed it super hard in the first 150 hours. Modest levels.
 
Kuoppis said:
90% of the input power in class A is being disseminated as heat, not as music output. When you turn the volume up the amp is moving from Class A to Class A/B. Latter is able to leverage the power input better and thus generates less heat. As you most probably already are out of Class A in the 18-24 range there is not so much difference in heat dissemination.

Class A amplification sounds good, but is very inefficient [emoji3].


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As a Diablo 300/S3 Mk II owner, I believe my 300 is operating predominately in Class A at volume settings 18 - 24 for most of the music I play (classical & jazz).
 
Thanks all. All good info.

But I have clearly not explained myself very well! I just want to know whether there is a point at which (assume operating in class A) we can ‘over use’ the amp so that the inevitable ‘usual wear and tear’ accelerates.

For example (an extreme case): would daily listening sessions of 10 consecutive hours result in more rapid degredation than daily listening sessions of 5 x 2 hours?
 
Ive heard Dan D'Agostino say something to this effect (from a video somewhere discussing his momentum amplifiers): Modern electrical components have a very high thermal tolerance and even though my amps get quite hot in their small chassis' it is nothing remotely close to the temperatures they were designed for.

Aside from that I would recommend turning the amplifier on and off just once per day if you plan to use it a lot. The thought is that heating and cooling cycles are "harder" on gear than extended time at high but stable temperatures. Capacitors have a lifespan that is likely shortened due to high temperatures (from what I understand they dry out) but again they are designed to operate in such environments and their degradation is also a function of time alone. I would just plan to send the unit in for recapping in 10 years in the event that you still have it. That way you don't have to feel bad about running it as often as you'd like.

These are the thoughts I went through when I had my Luxman L-590aX Class A integrated. There is that fear of "using it up" and performance degradation. I would just give it plenty of ventilation (I attached a 12v computer fan behind my rack to keep air circulating) and let it play! The degradation is essentially nil and likely inevitable, plus it makes for good justification to upgrade when the 350 comes out!


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