Installing the Trident 2

[Ron Resnick]

Ron,
Whenever you are ready, I would be happy to lend you - the Antileon EVO, Essence or Mephisto to drive your Pendragons.
Hopefully, the Lockdown will be lifted shortly & we'll all use the Apple / Google Tracing app on our phones. Should address concern about having guests over to your home.
Ciao,
Philip

Thank you, Philip! If I live long enough to see the completion of the repairs on our house, and I set up the system, at some point I'll take you up on your kind offer. It will be a very interesting comparison to the Siegfried II!

 

[Philip O Hanlon]

Congrats Phillip! Please post impressions. I am beyond excited to have mine installed by Joe, maybe by mid April the room will be ready. - hugh

Hugh,
I hear through the grapevine that your listening room is spectacular ! Congrats !
Please post photos & impressions of the finished product.
Many thanks,
Philip

 

[HughP3]

Hello Phillip! Oh man its incredible. I just posted on the room build thread with pictures. here is the link to my thoughts. I posted pictures here too. Lorie and I have a great recollection of our meeting you for that second “private” demo at 2019 AXPONA. The wine was flowing and you were larger than life we had a blast. Thank you.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...ead-aka-the-big-dig.28408/page-10#post-651905

 

[Elliot G.]

Very nice looking room. Hope it is all you wanted!

 

[HughP3]

Very nice looking room. Hope it is all you wanted!

Thanks Elliot. You actually had a hand in this, pushing me toward better equipment choices than i was originally going to do.

 

[Elliot G.]

Thanks Elliot. You actually had a hand in this, pushing me toward better equipment choices than i was originally going to do.

LOL glad I could help. I do believe however that doing it the best you can at first saves you more in the long run.

 

[Philip O Hanlon]

Had a wonderful music session on Friday afternoon with Steve Williams, the co-founder and fearless leader of WBF. Swapped out the Mephisto for the Essence, which is sweeter amplifier and though less resolving, its not noticeable that we are missing any musical information. Given that the mid woofers & HF ribbon tweeter are 95dB efficient, they don’t need a lot of power. So 50W of Class A power is more than adequate.

Now that the speakers have more hours on them, we thought it would be a good opportunity to enjoy a comparison between CD and LP.


We started with Lori Lieberman & The Matangi String Quartet The Girl And The Cat with the LP played on the Bergmann Galder and the CD on the Gryphon Ethos. This is such a revealing recording that you can hear Lori breathe into her microphone on both the CD & LP. The strings are glorious and both plucked & bowed strings have rich, dense texture. In this comparison we felt that the LP was richer, fuller with a better developed midrange and more palpable presence.
Pandora’s interview here. Michael Fremer's review here.


Next up was Isabeau Coriveau’s A Leap Of Faith; this beautiful lady is a harpist, flautist, composer with a gorgeous voice. Her music style is principally Irish & British folk music but tastefully updated. Her seven piece band play interesting arrangements.
During the CD / LP comparison we were hard pressed to find one format noticeably sonically superior to the other. We did however prefer the 2xDSD upsampling on the Ethos. We listening to Scarborough Fair (sung in English from the woman's POV) & Blackbird.
Both the music & sound quality are intriguing. Well worth seeking out as its an album that will grow on you over time and reveal itself. I’m amazed that this album has sailed underneath the radar of so many music lovers. Truly a breath of fresh air.


Regrettably I do not have the CD of Dominique Fils-Aimé’s debut album Nameless. Musically & sonically this album is a clear 10-10. She has a couple of terrific cover songs, Strange Fruit, made famous by Billy Holiday and Feeling Good. Otherwise her own compositions are really strong; we played Birds - I am at a loss for words, simply stunning. Her lead vocals & backing singing are so cleverly interwoven: a joy to hear.
Hard to find on vinyl but well worth the trouble. This is a MUST HAVE album.

Steve commented that the Bergmann presented vinyl with a wonderfully quiet background, relaxed and utterly musical. Yet it delivered a fully linear frequency response with no editorializing.

The Tridents have shown that they disappear sonically and present a huge, wide soundstage. They are even-handed and linear in their output. Given first class sources, such as the Ethos & The Galder, they are capable of reference quality sonic performance. Most of the time we forget about the system and allow ourselves to be carried away on a panoramic, Technicolour musical voyage. Every music session is a different adventure as we explore music never played on this system before and find details that were hitherto lost in the mix.

Next up, the return of the serviced reVox / SonoruS PR99; I foresee a comparison of tape vs CD vs LP; it will be interesting to hear how that plays out. Can't wait to hear the upcoming Al Green titles from The Tape Project.

 

[Steve Williams]

I always enjoy being invited to an afternoon listening session at the home of my good friend Philip O'Hanlon. When he invites me over I know that he usually hs something new and good to share.
This past afternoon was no different but the treat I was in for was at least 10 different LP's that Philip had recently collected in his travels to the Montreal Audio Show that he felt were worthy of a listen. Further I was going to finally hear the music on a well burned in pair of Gryphon Trident 2 Speakers together with listening to much of the same music on CD played on his new Gryphon Ethos transport/DAC which upsamples to either DSD128 or DXD 352.8
The music was ail new to my ears and the ones Philip has shown above were simply terrific.The LP's were all played on Philip's new Bergmann Galder which I thought was a remarkably good turntable for the price

I have to admit that these Trident 2 speakers simply purred with plenty of air around the strings and ambience that had me listening from start to finish.

The Gryphon Ethos is also worthy of moment because of the ability to upsample to DSD128 or DXD.

On most passages I preferred DSD128 although when we compared Lori Lieberman's new CD and record I favored listening to the CD on DXD

It was a wonderful afternoon as always with Philip. Any in the area here should give Philipa call and hear his system. These Trident 2's are the real deal