Gryphon Amplifier Crackle? Help!

LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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Hi all,

I own a s/hand Gryphon Antileon (full Class A all the time). i had all the capacitors replaced due to some buzzing. Gryphon could not fix it. My local dealer helped me out...replaced all capacitors which worked perfectly for about 90 days...but now buzzing has come back. Symptoms:
- Tweeter crackle or mid-range buzz in LEFT Tweeter
- Even if Gryphon is muted and ALL other components are OFF
- Crackle MOVES to RIGHT speaker if i switch speaker leads on Gryphon
- Flipping the front panel switches (50% Class A bias, 75%, 100% Class A) immediately stops buzzing...but after 30 minutes it comes back

Transistor? Output board? these are all terms i've read/heard from my searches. I am having the amp picked up tomorrow and sent to the dealer who kindly replaced all LEFT/RIGHT capacitors and (fortunately) warrantied his work for 1 year.

any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
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I've had this happen due to the mylar insulator on an output power transistor breaking down. Then, when the output transistor heats up, the thermal expansion causes an intermittent short. However, this was on a rather old amplifier.
 

LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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Gary,

many thanks for posting! i have read many of your posts and respect your views and evident experience tremendously! The gryphon is probably 7+years old, and being Class A gets super-hot which i suppose adds more wear and tear. I will mention this to the dealer when they take it back. i love this amp, so hopefully it can be fixed. if not...i have been reading about the latest Bryston 28b SST2 with real interest...particularly the 20-year warranty. I run Wilson Grand Slamms, so i imagine despite their great efficiency (95db), they could benefit from the limitless power.
 

fas42

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Jan 8, 2011
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Transistor? Output board? these are all terms i've read/heard from my searches. I am having the amp picked up tomorrow and sent to the dealer who kindly replaced all LEFT/RIGHT capacitors and (fortunately) warrantied his work for 1 year.

any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!
Again, just a guess. The fact that upping the bias had an immediate effect which has only a short term benefit, to my mind suggests an output transistor has a bad joint, internally or adjacent to the body of it. Increasing the bias immediately ups the temperature of this component, metals expand and cause the the two sides of the fragile connection to push together, improving the connection temporarily. The heavy duty thermal cycling of the Gryphon being switched on and off over the years would have caused fatiguing of the metal in a crucial spot.

Frank
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Hi

Look into it seriously. 7 years old is not that old in my book ... I have seen Class A SS functioning well after 20 years ... A call to Gryphon would be a good start IMO ...
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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Crackling is almost always a transistor going bad. It becomes this way and eventually it will fail. The transistor may be stand-alone or part of an IC.

If you feel comfortable with electronics, here is a way to figure out where it is. Get yourself a spray freezer. Lots of different brands exist. Here is a random one: http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Freeze-Electronic-Component-FR-777-777/dp/B000Z99ZCA

Open the top of the unit and find the amplifier boards. These are the ones with transistors with big heat sink on it. The output stage usually doesn't have the problem. It is the earlier stage with smaller parts that usually develop this problem.

First, something plastic and rather stiff like the back of a large screw driver. Tap the parts with it first and see if the noise comes and goes more with it. You can go gentle at first and then stronger. Unless there is a part that can bend and short out, it is a pretty safe process. Again, be sure it is an insulator. Do not use anything conductive. A kids toy hammer for example if you are not comfortable 100% holding the screw driver backward (dropping it into the amp will not be pretty).

If you are able to make the problem get worse or happen when you are tapping on it, then you need to localize it to a part. Get a smaller instrument, maybe the eraser on the back of a pencil or the back of a smaller screw driver and tap around on individual parts.

If still no success, then time to use the freezer. Go get your wife's hair dryer. Now spray the board really good to the point where it will have the whole board frozen white. Liberally spray it. Then listen to the noise changing in any way. Use the hair dryer now and go spot by spot (use it in low setting) and warm an area to see if it makes the noise come and go. If you find the general location, then perform this task in a much more localized way. Spray an inch area and warm it and keep doing it until you find the most sensitive area. You can also do the reverse. Really heat up the whole board with the hair dryer and then cool off one section at a time.

Now, this won't fix the problem but will at least locate what could be wrong. Do all of this and report back and we take it from there. And oh, take some pictures while you are in there.

Oh, I just read that you are sending it to the dealer :). Anyway, let us know what they claim. My money is on some small transistor or IC being bad. With one channel good, it should be very easy to troubleshoot. If they cannot, look elsewhere. They don't know what they are doing.
 

LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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Wow! Thanks for all your help! I will definitely mention output transistors and IC when I attach a short
Description of the problem. I am not (at all) comfortable with electronics...and I think its safer to leave
This to the pros rather than get electrocuted. At same time, this sounds like a time consuming hunting process
And sometimes people get lazy. Let's hope that does not happen here! I'll report back. Thanks.
 

amirm

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No problem. Just clarifying though, it is not usually the output transistor but he upstream driver and pre-amp circuits. They should not need you telling about any of this btw.
 

fas42

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My money is on some small transistor or IC being bad. With one channel good, it should be very easy to troubleshoot. If they cannot, look elsewhere. They don't know what they are doing.
Sometimes the component doesn't sense. I've already mentioned a decently rated power amp going bad because of a completely normal metal film resistor in no special place on a board going open circuit. Absolutely no sign of heat damage, voltages around it nothing special. Then some months later the exact same resistor on the other channel did the same! Most peculiar ...

Frank
 

flez007

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Aug 31, 2010
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Lloyd - I had a quite similar issue with my DM100 some years back, it urned out to be a re-biasing issue due to the higher-than-usal AC feed I had at home (125V vs 118V).
 

LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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Lloyd - I had a quite similar issue with my DM100 some years back, it urned out to be a re-biasing issue due to the higher-than-usal AC feed I had at home (125V vs 118V).

Hi! Thanks for that...very interesting. We are 240V here in the UK...but the voltage reading on the front of the Gryphon often reads 248-251V. i will definitely let them know.
 

LL21

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Well the Gryphon got picked up...should be driven to the Dealer's tomorrow afternoon. They were nice enough to give me a loaner amp so i have music...Goldmund Mimesis. Its no Gryphon, but it weighs about one-tenth and i suspect does not cost as much either. and i have music while i work tonite at home...great!!!
 

flez007

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Hi! Thanks for that...very interesting. We are 240V here in the UK...but the voltage reading on the front of the Gryphon often reads 248-251V. i will definitely let them know.

Good!... As you know I also had the Anthileon, for some reason it was either more tolerant to AC variations and/or they "tropicalized" the PSU to 124V that we have here.

I also had this issue with my Metaxas gear some years back... I assume some amps are more sensitive than others in this regard. I hope it gets fixed soon...

Fernando
 

flez007

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Well the Gryphon got picked up...should be driven to the Dealer's tomorrow afternoon. They were nice enough to give me a loaner amp so i have music...Goldmund Mimesis. Its no Gryphon, but it weighs about one-tenth and i suspect does not cost as much either. and i have music while i work tonite at home...great!!!

So? :)

Is the amp back from the shop?
 

LL21

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Dec 26, 2010
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Hi Fernando,

thanks for checking in. No, not yet. i would expect that if they have just gotten around to looking at it, that would be about right. The good thing is they lent me a Goldmund Mimesis amp to run while i wait. Its not a Gryphon, but its not bad either and i have music at home. I spoke this morning, and they said they would update me this afternoon or tomorrow. I suspect, as many here have said, it will be a matter of someone methodically freeze-spraying the inside of the unit and tracking down the faulty wires/capacitors/transistors section by section. Fingers crossed they get it, because I really do enjoy the sound and have not found an amp i prefer. And certainly not for the money.

BTW, did you ever replace the fuses in the Gryphon? Relative to today's newer amps (including Gryphon i am told), the Antileon is not the most transparent...but i have heard that using Furutech fuses will help in this regard. I know Oneobgyn was going to do some investigation on his side on this as well. i figured it probably will not hurt to try, so i will pop one in when it comes back or ask them to do it for me. Meanwhile, any experience in this regard is welcome.

BTW, i use a Purist Audio Ann Contego PC for the Amp.
 

flez007

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Aug 31, 2010
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I left both my DM100 and my Anthileon with factory fuses, no tweaks whatsoever..... I tried to plug the Anthileon to a Powerwedge 16 AC filter and I blew-out the thing!
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
5,599
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Seattle, WA
www.genesisloudspeakers.com
I left both my DM100 and my Anthileon with factory fuses, no tweaks whatsoever..... I tried to plug the Anthileon to a Powerwedge 16 AC filter and I blew-out the thing!

I would be very careful with power cords and power conditioners because 115V and 230V are so very different - not only in the way the electricity is delivered, but also in the way that the power supply inside the component is designed. The usual way that a power transformer is done - two primary coils, wired in parallel for 115V and wired in series for 230V - reacts very differently with the two different voltages. The different wiring also makes the component sound vastly different - power amps more so than source components.

May be someone else could jump in with the differences because I haven't done as much study as I would have liked to have done on power transformers.
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
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I left both my DM100 and my Anthileon with factory fuses, no tweaks whatsoever..... I tried to plug the Anthileon to a Powerwedge 16 AC filter and I blew-out the thing!

i run my front ent and pre thru a Nordost QX4 and Transp Ref Power Isolator...but Antileon runs direct from the wall on separate socket. The Gryphon has made it thru the queue and is now being looked at by the engineer. Fingers crossed!
 

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