The Drivers - Gryphon Cantata Owner's Manual

black, American Walnut Burl or
Black Anodized aluminum.
Optional finishes include Vavona
Veneer, Ebony
Perforated Steel, black rubber
and other exciting finishes. All
veneers are, of course, legal and
documented. For a truly cus-
tomized finish, it is possible to
order panels with textiles, carpet,
fur, leather or just about anything
you can imagine. At Gryphon we
will be happy to assist you in cre-
ating a unique personalized
Cantata System.

The Drivers

At Gryphon, our many years in
the amplifier business have
taught us that what you don't do
can be even more important
than what you do. Elegant sim-
plicity is generally the best solu-
tion, but often the most compli-
cated objective to achieve. We
also found that in speaker
design an alarming number of
crossover components is often
used for the sole purpose of
compensating for poor driver
design. We have to face the fact
that high end audio is a very
small and unattractive business
for most large driver manufactur-
ers and that some of the require-
ments of high end manufacturers
are often deemed unrealistic or
perhaps even controversial, as
they may challenge conventional
wisdom.
As a result, many speaker man-
ufacturers use the same drivers,
Veneer, while exerting great effort to opti-
mize their performance and
gloss over their inevitable short-
comings.
In the Cantata, we chose not to
follow this well-trodden path. in
keeping with our uncompromis-
ing design philosophy, we placed
sharp focus on driver perform-
ance outside their main frequen-
cy range. It soon became obvi-
ous that we had to make our own
bass drivers. A leading Danish
manufacturer had some good
basic elements and was pre-
pared to collaborate with us in
refining them. Together, we cre-
ated a 5-inch driver with a coat-
ed Kevlar cone and a uniquely
shaped rubber surround for a
perfect transition between cone
and baffle, preventing the usual
turbulence from surrounds that
are merely a circular rubber gas-
ket around the driver. The con-
ventional soft dust cap was
replaced with a very rigid, light-
weight alternative to prevent
deformation or break-up under
stress. On general principles, we
even added an extra set of ter-
minals to the cone for perfect
weight and piston symmetry.
The cast magnesium basket was
designed with maximum ventila-
tion between cone and spider to
prevent compression of trapped
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