Gryphon Mojo - Manual (Page 5)

Beginning with source compo-
nents, Gryphon designed the
world's first single-chassis CD
player with onboard upsamp-
ling. The third generation of
this innovative technology, the
Gryphon Mikado, has won
numerous awards around the
world. The next logical step
was to apply the uncompromi-
sing Gryphon take-no-priso-
ners approach to the final link
in the chain. But this decision
was by no means made on the
spur of the moment.
In fact, the Gryphon speaker
adventure began nearly 18
years ago with a chance
encounter between Gryphon
founder Flemming E.
Rasmussen and Steen
Duelund, a Danish mathema-
tician who has dedicated his
professional life to loudspea-
ker theory.
Duelund's theories on con-
stant phase in crossover net-
works can be summed up in a
single statement: "All drivers
must be in phase at all times
at all frequencies." Following
this theoretical "Eureka," the
hard part then becomes
making that happen in a real
room with a real loudspeaker.
Initially on a strictly informal
basis, an in-depth exploration
was undertaken that would
take full advantage of
Gryphon's assembled exper-
tise and extensive experience
in design and manufacturing
to transform Duelund's theor-
ies into real-world products
with scant regard for such
minor details as pricing, parts
availability, prevailing attitudes
and preconceived notions.
Steen Duelund passed away
in 2005 but the rest of the ori-
ginal design team implement
his ideas and spirit, as much
as possible, in every Gryphon
speaker project. Duelund left
a unique library of reference
recordings to Gryphon CEO
Flemming E. Rasmussen.
These recordings are still
used in all projects, allowing
us to imagine what the old
master would had said.
Mojo design observations
As with all things known to
man, loudspeakers are sub-
ject to the laws of physics and
to the limitations of human
perception. We may bend,
manipulate or mask or exploit
these laws and limitations, but
we cannot ignore them.
In the quest for the finest
speaker, music lovers audition
numerous models and finally
settle on what they believe to
be the “best” speaker. What
else can you do? But is the
“best speaker” truly the best
speaker? If you are lucky, you
will end up with a speaker that
is the best match for a parti-
cular room, a speaker that
might be a complete disaster
when set up in a different
room. This explains the differ-
ences in opinion about speak-
er performance. The perfor-
mance/quality of any given
speaker changes radically,
depending on its environment.
Steen Duelund 1943 -2005
Lars Matthisen, Chief Acoustic
adviser at Gryphon, carrier of the
Duelund flame.