Gryphon Diablo 250 vs Hegel390

there is no doubt gryphons are beautifully built... for the asking price they should be

just reminding the op that build quality does not necessarily equal sound quality -- each brand and model are voiced by their producers

i have owned many many amps, roughly 40 over the years, half solid state... i have NOT heard a gryphon except for short intervals at some high end shows, not an intensive sampling

but i would say that i own 3 hegels in various systems -- sound wise, they are among the very small handful of ss amps i can happily live with long term, as they have the warm full rich tonality i desire, with clean yet unobtrusive natural rendering of detail

no affiliation other than being a very happy owner

good luck to op - by all means try the gryphon, but don’t let the big hegel be underestimated for what lovely music it can make

I would be very interested to know which integrated you will end up with. I am in a similar situation possibly looking for a higher end integrated. I am considering the Diablo (even thinking of the Diablo 300 but I haven't found out how much better it is), the older Vitus RI-100, the Audia Flight FLS10 and the Audio Analogue Maestro Anniversary. Unfortunately it is very difficult to audition all of them.

@greg_f Try to audition the Diablo 300, you will be surprised.It’s the type of integrated you can keep for a lifetime.

Some details about the upstream and downstream I should have included. I will be driving Sonus Faber Guarneri. And for the time being plan to only play hi-res digital files. Have Qutest dac and cannot splash on a higher end dac yet. 

@thieliste Thanks for the suggestion. Is it really that much better that the original Diablo? Sorry OP for derailing your thread.