Gryphon Eos 2 speakers launched in Malaysia

By AMMAR MARITI

WHAT better way to spend a Sunday than to do some listening? Reference Audio had just launched Gryphon’s new entry level speaker, the Gryphon Eos 2 here in Malaysia, and I decided to make my way to the Concorde Hotel Kuala Lumpur, where the launch was held on Jan 14/15.

Gryphon had prepared three rooms to showcase the set-ups alongside several other notable equipment, like Magico speakers, TechDas turntable, and CH Precision linestage and amplifiers. The main draw, however, was the Eos 2, which retails for €22,000 per pair. Gryphon sales director Rune Skov, who was present, had some interesting things to reveal about the speakers.



"The Eos 2 is the entry to the world of Gryphon and it is the smallest floorstanding speaker that we have ever made. We are using new technology within the Gryphon company in terms of speaker manufacturing. We have been using the Air Motion tweeter technology for so long with our speakers, but this is the first time we are using a beryllium dome tweeter. And to my knowledge it is the largest beryllium dome tweeter in the market at 34mm, so it is a very large dome."

During listening, the small-ish Eos 2 sounded big in the room. It was powered by the fully Class-A 150-watts-per-channel Gryphon Antileon Evo Stereo power amp, a similarly fully Class-A Gryphon Essence preamplifier, and the Ethos CD player. The speakers featured a customisable bass port which allows the user to switch between front- and rear-firing configurations. In the demo, it was set to rear firing with consideration about the room size as well as the distance from the rear wall.



The tweeters are also configurable with three different Ultra High Frequency (UHF) settings to attenuate treble response, depending on the environment where you play the speakers and how they’re set up in terms of toe-in.

"Ideally the toe in would be between nothing until two or three degrees - then you will have it in position one. But then when you have them in a much larger room and you cannot really have that golden triangle, you could adjust the UHF to position two or three and you can work with the toe in until around 15 degrees. So it becomes very flexible in terms of use and positioning," Skov said.



"The speaker was designed to be very close to the rear wall - from one to two feet away - though you'll need to have support from the room to get that very very deep bass," he added.

"But let's say you're playing in a very lively room where you have to be much more aware of the bass and its reflections and so on, so you can close the rear port and open the front port."



What about the power requirements for the Eos 2?

"It's quite efficient. We were quite conservative when we were saying it is 89-90dB but is pretty close to 91dB of sensitivity. But as it is a high-end speaker and an entry to the world of Gryphon, what it requires to drive is quality.

"The speakers will tell you immediately because it is so revealing in everything it does. But absolutely, you can drive them from a small integrated amplifier."

The Gryphon Eos 2 and other Gryphon Audio products are available at YY Sound Systems (+6012 584 6520).