Digital Integrity

Based on comprehensive listening sessions in the quest for the best available digital-to-analog conversion technology without regard to cost or other extraneous considerations, Gryphon Scorpio employs an Asahi Kasei Microsystems Delta-Sigma DAC from the acclaimed designers of the world’s finest professional A-to-D and D-to-A converters.

The advanced DAC at the heart of the Gryphon Scorpio makes a major contribution to the player’s effortlessly natural rendering of a three-dimensional soundscape with exceptional timing and razor-shape detail.

In the interest of extracting the purest, most unadulterated sound possible, timing issues are addressed with two independent, specially designed, temperature-compensated crystal oscillators accurate to better than five parts per million.

Gryphon’s pioneering upsampling technology significantly reduces filter demands on the analogue side of the D/A converter by shifting the spectrum of quantization noise (aliasing) up and away from the range in which it is most detrimental, so that the upper corner frequency of the digital anti-aliasing filter is more than four times that of the standard 44.1 kHz sample rate..

Despite claims made by some manufacturers, upsampling can neither miraculously restore lost information nor generate new information from the original 44.1 kHz source. What properly implemented upsampling can do is eliminate the need for conventional, steep-slope analogue filtering altogether.

In the Gryphon Scorpio, this filter is replaced by a single, silvered Mica capacitor acting as a simple, first-order analogue output filter, preserving the integrity of the audio signal for a pristine presentation staged against an utterly silent, “black” backdrop with a noise floor well below that of the recording itself.

Gryphon Scorpio executes the filter function benignly in the digital domain by employing asynchronous 32-bit/192 kHz sample rate conversion originally introduced in the digital reference standard Gryphon Mikado Signature to ensure greater resolution of fine detail, sharper image focus and extended high-frequency response.

By executing the filter function benignly in the digital domain with asynchronous 32-bit/192 kHz sample rate conversion originally introduced in the digital reference standard Gryphon Mikado Signature CD player, Gryphon Scorpio achieves extraordinary resolution of fine detail, sharp image focus and extended high-frequency response.