Cheap it isn't? Gryphon's Atilla costs practically £7,000, for what at first sight looks like a modestly equipped 100-watt integrated amplifier.
And this is the entry-level model, which is a long, long way from the top of the company's range.
There is nothing matter-of-fact or ordinary about the Gryphon Atilla, from the vaguely threatening product name, to the opening passage in the product information, describing the integrated amplifier breed as 'the ugly ducklings' of high-end audio.
Yet, this rather extravagant claim simply doesn't hold water. It's true that a majority of the very best cost-no-object amplifiers are configured as separate pre and power amplifiers, but there is no necessary correlation between packaging and performance.
There are plenty of under-achieving component pre and power amplifiers and a surprising number of truly excellent integrateds, a category that includes exceptional machinery from Belles (the IA-01), the Plinius 9100, Unison Research Unico Primo, Sim Audio Moon, Krell FBI and the Macintosh MA6300 – and there are more where they came from.
In any case, the idea of calling such a drop-dead gorgeous object as the Atilla an ugly duckling (using the term in its other more directly pejorative sense) is more than unfair – it is nothing less than a travesty.
Looked at simply as a piece of industrial design, the Atilla is remarkable and in some ways stunning. The amplifier itself inhabits a more or less rectangular box, though it is very slim and unusually heavy for a 100-watter (that's the eight-ohm rating, it delivers 200 watts into four ohms).
It is supported at an appropriate angle by two shock-absorbing feet and a single centrally mounted solid cone. At the sides, it is propped up by two strikingly shaped diecast aluminium feet. The design of the amplifier is clearly intended to ensure good convection cooling.
Gryphon describes the Atilla amplifier as minimalist and again we think it has overstated the case, though it is a reasonably simple amplifier is some ways. There's no phono input for example, although an all singing MM/MC input is available as an optional extra. And there are no tone controls or filters.
From the back the amplifier looks reasonably conventional, with inputs for four line-level items, a tape circuit and a single-balanced mode, XLR-based input. But some of the design is clearly minimalist in intent.
When under power, the front panel shows the volume level and input status. The amplifier is configured internally as a dual mono amplifier, based around two high-current independent transformers from the prestigious Holmgren stable.
The independence of the two channels internally is intended to minimise crosstalk and the product information supplied, makes the claim that the Atilla is a no feedback amplifier, though the usual point should be made that there is almost no such thing as a true feedback-free amplifier.
That form of words usually serves to describe an amplifier with no global, overall feedback, even where local feedback around individual gain stages is used.
The Atilla was designed lock, stock and barrel in its Danish home and it has many powerful qualities. The operating firmware is upgradable, as and when the manufacturer gets around to adding new features, but the feature set already includes a programmable start-up volume level and a maximum level.
The amplifier can also be configured to provide a fixed-level output, bypassing the volume control, so that this function is supplied externally. This is for those who have a multichannel amplifier or processor and are are not willing to accept the usual compromises.
It also has lightning reflexes plus a treble, which is not quite silky in the valve amplifier sense, but is clearly articulated and very finely detailed. It makes the amplifier very comfortable to listen to, even for extended periods.
The Atilla is a very special amplifier, that works well with a wide gamut of recordings, and which preserves what is so special about particular recordings. It does have voicing, which is slightly unusual and suggests that care should be taken when choosing a partnering source component.
This makes the Atilla harder than usual to sum up, but at the end we're convinced this is one of the very finest integrated amplifiers available.
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