Life of a Gryphon?

[tkoslek]

Does anyone have an educated idea as to the life expectancy of the big class-A Gryphon amplifiers? How old are they before caps and relays start to become an issue?

 

[LL21]

I am no techie, and there are far more educated and professionally experienced people who can answer that. My first Gryphon was 2nd hand and 14 years old when i got it...perfect for about 1 year...15 years old...and then I had the whole thing re-capped, and somebody did not get one of the resistor soldering things right, and after they found it and fixed it (took forever to find), it was great and was told the unit could run another 10 years minimum given that the main thing that gets old are the capacitors.

I then got a 2nd hand Gryphon Colosseum which was 1 year old when I got it, and I sold it after about 6-7 years in perfect condition. I now own a 2nd hand, 1-owner Gryphon Mephisto which is about 4 years old.

 

[tkoslek]

Thanks LL21! I know they are built like a tank and with excellent internal parts and quality. Like you have done, I am hoping to climb the ladder through pre-owned purchases so having an understanding of what to expect is helpful.

 

[LL21]

Fantastic Tkoslek!

 

[Mabutu]

I know audiophiles don’t like them but you could place noctua fans on those Gryphon amps and they will last a lot longer

say an average audio capacitor is rated to last 2000 hours at 85 degrees

for every 10 degrees you lower the ambient temperature around the cap you can double its life span

and once a year I pull my gear apart and blow off any dust with a small compressor

there once was an American firm who made excellent caps

these Mallory caps still works and measure well after 75 years

 

[LL21]

Interesting...How quiet are these fans?

 

[Mabutu]

1 fan is rated at 22.5 decibels running at full speed 2000 rpm against no resistance

of course if placed blowing into vents , the resistance causes noise levels to rise

for something Class A like Gryphon I don’t think 1 fan would suffice

my denon POA-a1hdca pictured above I use 6 because denon crammed a tonne of boards into a smallish chassis so heat tends to accumulate . Their preamp was pure class A and even worse for heat build up

12 years and running that denon .

but it’s 46 decibels from my listening position With 6 fans and I have them blowing air into the amp. Its quiteter if you have the fans sucking hot air out

for movie watching I don’t hear them as most of my movies are easily over 60 decibels

I use noctua fans on my Luxman CD player and Vitus Audio preamp ( class a pre ) And vitus power

 

[LL21]

Thanks. I am working with a manufacturer on a custom equipment rack for the Gryphon, and with glass doors to close off the front to keep from small prying fingers...we were not only going to create a large volume of space with ventilation louvers...but also 2 fans to extract heat from the rear of the cabinet (which will be entirely open as well...no back).

 

[taww]

Thanks. I am working with a manufacturer on a custom equipment rack for the Gryphon, and with glass doors to close off the front to keep from small prying fingers...we were not only going to create a large volume of space with ventilation louvers...but also 2 fans to extract heat from the rear of the cabinet (which will be entirely open as well...no back).

I’m also working on a custom cabinet design for my Essence setup. It’ll have an open front, but need to create some airflow. Fortunately the Essence is reasonable for a Class A amp so I should be able to cool it silently with a couple Noctua fans and some acoustic baffling.

 

[LL21]

I’m also working on a custom cabinet design for my Essence setup. It’ll have an open front, but need to create some airflow. Fortunately the Essence is reasonable for a Class A amp so I should be able to cool it silently with a couple Noctua fans and some acoustic baffling.

Interesting. Had not thought about acoustic baffling...mainly because so much of the cabinet (back plus side louvers) will be open. Certainly am investigating the quietest fans...and also making sure we can turn them on/off easily. We also intend to have the 'ceiling' in the cabinet sloped so that rising heat is naturally drawn upward and OUT towards the back.

 

[Down Under]

All my new Gryphon purchases have been exceedingly reliable.
I purchased M100 monoblocks around 1996 and they worked flawlessly for 17 years before needing a modest repair.
A friend still has them and they continue to perform reliably in his system.

 

[tkoslek]

That is excellent to hear, thank you!

 

[martin778]

The thing is to catch it on time when it's due for repairs. Waiting for too long before getting the amplifier serviced might end up in a write-off if the caps destroy the via's and the pads. The boards are the best quality I've ever seen in audio gear but even these have a limited lifespan if corrossion gets into them. What often happens is a cap still looking perfectly fine on the outside but has already leaked through the leads and it's eating the PCB.
On a positive side, I've had an Antileon and only the smallest radial electrolytics were gone but also on places that you normally wouldn't suspect like the front end / logic PSU.
The worst part is that these amps have a plethora of different adjustments like trimpots for the negative and positive PSU rails, separate for each channel and they are inaccessible without disassembling the amplifier. You'd need a test setup to get the module running on (very hefty) lab PSU's to make the adjustments. If the adjustments are too far off from the factory setting, the amplfier will simply shut down that channel.

We have inspected the Antileon thoroughly and found no part that's really EOL, even the main brain chip is an off the shelf part that doesn't seem to use any specific software. Do keep in mind that they use custom made PSU caps so you'll need to remove one, measure the size and value and order replacements.

You don't have to bother contacting Gryphon for any support or repair documentation - you'll get none. You might aswell try to bribe a dealer or one of their repair centers but I haven't succeded in that yet ;-) Having said that, an experienced tech will get it fixed but he'll need time to figure everything out.
Refurb will be very costly as it's labor intensive, though. Never, ever skimp on labor and parts on these amps if 1 single cap is leaky, expect all caps of this type in both channels to be (partially) faulty.

@Mabutu,
That's a brilliant idea, Noctua NF-A12x25 you're showing are the best fans on the market at the moment, the older variants are called "Nidec Servo" or "Scythe Gentle Typhoon" and are a bit worse (older design) but retain the pleasant sound signature and are available in all black.