What kind of creature is this?
Gryphon Audio Designs’ new Ethos ($39,000)—pronounced EE-toss by its Danish manufacturers—is marketed as a CD player and digital-to-analog converter. It’s decidedly au courant in that it includes two 32bit/768kHz ES9038PRO Sabre DAC chips—one for each channel—with each holding eight individual DAC chips; offers optional upsampling to either 24/384 PCM or DSD128; and decodes up to 32/384 PCM and quadruple DSD (DSD512) via its USB input, or up to 24/192 (and no DSD) via AES/EBU or S/PDIF. It does not decode MQA or the high-resolution layer of an SACD disc, and it has no Ethernet port. Aspects of its styling are eye-catching and resolutely retro: Its strikingly lit, top-loading disc mechanism resembles an LP platter, access to which is gained by lifting a tonearm-like handle. The gold-plated puck that holds the CD in place (as on most or all toploaders) evokes nothing so much as a CD record weight.
Especially when its CD transport lights up from within during disc loading, the Gryphon Ethos is the most beautiful audio component I’ve ever had the opportunity to handle. Once I had made peace with its wide choice of reconstruction filters—seven PCM and three DSD—and decided whether I preferred its optional upsampling feature, or not, I found the Ethos among the easiest of components to control, whether by its front panel or (sturdy) remote. I frequently found myself gazing at what Gryphon refers to as the player’s “vacuum fluorescent” front panel display.
Like the gryphon of Greek mythology—its eagle head and wings and lion body are thought, by company founder Flemming E. Rasmussen, to represent “the perfect union” of grace and power—the Ethos is a singular creature that plays by its own rules.
From there to here
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