Gryphon Pendragon User Manual
Page 8
The Quest for Simplicity
No single drive unit is capable of properly reproducing the
entire audible range from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. No diaphragm can
move fast enough to reproduce 20 kHz overtones and, at the
same time, move enough air to reproduce deep bass at con-
cert hall levels.
For this reason, loudspeaker manufacturers devote considera-
ble resources during product development to selecting speci-
alised drivers for each frequency section and, more
importantly, to designing a crossover network to coerce them
all to work together. To do so, the frequency spectrum is sliced
up electronically and each piece is directed to the appropriate
driver where things are hopefully reassembled to form a cohe-
rent acoustic event.
It is at this point that so much can go wrong.
Are the selected crossover components good enough to do
their job without signal loss or distortion?
Are the drivers sufficiently similar in tonal quality and speed
that they can create the illusion of a single coherent source of
sound?
Does the crossover network properly compensate for the dri-
vers’ varying sensitivities so that the resulting sound is cor-
rectly balanced from top to bottom?
Have the crossover points between the drivers been properly
tuned for undetectable, seamless transitions with no frequency
dips or peaks or phase anomalies?
Is the cabinet designed to prevent resonances and delete-
rious interaction between the drivers?
The Gryphon Audio design team possesses unique experi-
ence in the solution of such arcane audio problems, having le-
arned the most valuable lesson of all: that eliminating a
problem before it arises is always far better than trying to
solve it.
Or, to put it in the vernacular – An ounce of prevention is worth
a pound of cure.
In accordance with this guiding principle, Gryphon Pendragon
eliminates the cabinet altogether in the mid/high frequency
range. Instead, an extremely rigid panel houses a vertical
array of four Air Motion Transformer (AMT) super-tweeters
alongside a single, two meter tall dipolar planar magnetic
thin-film ribbon transducer.
Passive x-over