View attachment 42849
L - R Antileon EVO, Mephisto & Colosseum
I was fortunate enough the week before last to spend many pleasant hours at The House Of Gryphon in Ry, Denmark with Bjørn Hegelstad (Gryphon's export manager) listening to the Trident 2 driven initially by the Diablo 300, fed by a Mikado CD player. We played the same music throughout the comparison. Subsequently we used the new Zena preamp with the Antileon EVO, then the Colosseum. Afterwards, we compared the Zena to the Pandora preamp using the Mephisto...
Hi Phil,
I saw your comments about 300 to Evo being a much bigger uplift in performance than Evo to Colosseum. How does Colosseum compare with Mephisto? I am interested in the Mephisto but an audition is difficult to do. Thanks for any guidance.
I am quite familiar with Gryphon amps in particular, and agree on most of Lloyd`s comment in this thread - there is a large improvement over the already great Diablo 300 going up to a pure class A Gryphon Design amp.
The Colosseum sits just in the middle of the slightly mellow-sounding Anthileon and the ultra fast Mephisto beast IMO, I think you can't go wrong.
I have heard many of these amps with relatively low priced speakers as well, as you said you can upgrade later....if you feel the need.
Anyone else out there who owns/has listened to the Antileon Evo and concluded that classical, jazz and electronica sounds extraordinarily good, but hard rock/grunge/metal sounds very good but not quite as good as the other genres? My AE has about 100 hours of burn in (courtesy of my dealer) so still some way to go yet and maybe the sound will change.
Andrew
I’m still trying to work it out. “Bite” might be it.
What a fantastic post - thank you.
I would also be interested in your thoughts on the Zena v Pandora.
Hi Phil,
Just thought I would check in to see if you might have any time in your busy schedule to provide some color here. Great respect your opinions. Thank you!
Mephisto Vs Colosseum or Antileon EVO
The Mephisto really is a different league to its smaller siblings. I concur with flez007 that The Colosseum sits just in the middle of the slightly mellow-sounding Antileon EVO and the ultra fast Mephisto beast. The Mephisto has an Irish mile more resolution than its siblings. It might be too much of a good thing with forward sounding speakers. However with full range speakers, the bass is exceptional and will put a fantastic foundation underneath the music; giving music a gravitas where appropriate. The Mephisto is the natural partner for the Pandora and really showcases the amount of information that is available. Also the Green Bias is of huge interest considering the amount of power consumed & heat generated by this serious class A amp.
Another update:
- Still using my Lumin. Tried a firmware update to get the MSB renderer module working but no luck.
- The Gryphon combo is just sounding better and better. You know that feeling you have the day after a really good live concert when you can’t get the music/feeling out of your head? It is like that.
- I swapped out the XLR interconnects (from Pandora to AE) on loan from my dealer for some MIT SL Matrix XLR 36 interconnects to match my existing set (Lumin to Pandora). A noticeable step up in SQ even with no burn in, particularly LF and HF. I didn’t take note of what the the loaned set was but dealer said they are about half the price of the MITs.
- The 3 different Class A bias modes are an awesome feature. It is like having 3 amps in one, although I find I have no need for “medium”. The “low” bias is very much like the Diablo 300 but a touch better and as mentioned above is good for crunchy/distorted guitar music. Then as you move up to “medium” then “high” bias it just gets better and better for all other genres.
Am in music heaven.
How close are you to pulling the trigger on the Mephistos?
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