On 6th July, What Hi-Fi? published its verdict on the Gryphon Ethos and reached for language it almost never uses: “one of the finest CD players we have ever heard” — with full five-star scores for sound, build and features.
We stock the Ethos, so we read that review with more than casual interest. Our honest reaction: the stars slightly undersell what makes this player interesting.
What the Ethos actually is
Gryphon Audio Designs has built amplifiers in Denmark since 1985 with an unusually stubborn set of principles: pure class-A circuits, dual-mono construction, fully balanced signal paths, and no interest in fashion. The Ethos is that philosophy applied, without compromise, to the compact disc.
It is a top-loader. You lift a small arm, sit the disc over the spindle and hold it in place with a magnetic puck — a loading ritual closer to a turntable than a disc tray, and deliberately so. Beneath it spins a purpose-built Austrian CD-Pro 8 transport. Conversion is handled by two flagship ESS Sabre chips, one per channel, feeding a fully balanced class-A analogue stage with no integrated circuits in the signal path, fed by two separate analogue mains transformers. It weighs 17.3kg. Nothing about it is casual.
Just as importantly, the Ethos is a serious standalone digital converter: its USB input accepts music files up to 32-bit/384kHz and DSD512, with AES/EBU and coaxial connections alongside, so a streamer or music server can borrow its analogue electronics wholesale. And it deliberately is not several things: not an SACD player, not a streamer, not a lifestyle box. It does one job. The reviews are about how well.
What the world’s press says
What Hi-Fi? (July 2026, five stars): “The Gryphon Ethos is an exceptional CD player. It is beautifully made and is a pleasure to use… This player shows just what is possible with the original silver disc, and we suspect that it is way more than most people would imagine.” The magazine describes a sound “all about texture, physicality and body” and stereo imaging “as crisp and precise as you like”. Its honest niggles: you can hear the transport if you sit close, the lid could be better damped — and the price.
Hi-Fi+ was more emphatic still: “The Gryphon Ethos player makes CD sound a lot like high-resolution audio is supposed to sound… Forget all the preamble; this is music played at its absolute best.” Its reviewer admitted he “didn’t expect to put it among the top flight players, all of which cost around three to five times as much”.
And Stereophile called the Ethos “the most beautiful audio component I’ve ever had the opportunity to handle”, singling out the fully discrete, zero-negative-feedback output stage — and that vinyl-like loading ceremony.
Our verdict
Most of the serious listeners we work with own compact discs in the hundreds or thousands, and for a decade the industry’s advice has been the same: rip them, stream them, move on. The Ethos is the strongest counter-argument we have encountered. Treat the disc as a first-class source, with engineering this determined behind it, and CD repays you at a level most streaming front ends still cannot reach. What Hi-Fi?’s observation that the Ethos “sounds natural in a way that still eludes most high-end music streamers” matches everything we know about Gryphon’s electronics.
The caveats are real but small. A top-loader must live on the top shelf. It wants a rigid, dead-level support — Gryphon supplies a spirit level and lockable spikes, which tells you how seriously they take placement. Sit within a few metres and you will faintly hear the mechanism spin. In a well-designed listening room, none of this registers.
The price will. £37,500 is reference-territory money, and the Ethos deserves electronics and loudspeakers of matching ambition. But at this level the comparison is not with other CD players — it is with the best digital sources full stop, and the reviewers with the most hours on it are unanimous about where it stands.
Who is it for? The listener with a real silver-disc library, a system worthy of it, and more interest in enjoying the collection than archiving it.
Hear one properly
We are a Gryphon dealer. The Gryphon Ethos CD Player is available through us at £37,500 including VAT, alongside the wider Gryphon range — from the EOS 2 loudspeakers to the Apex power amplifier — and you will find more two-channel thinking on our hi-fi page.
Nobody should buy at this level from a photograph. If the Ethos has your attention, get in touch and we will arrange for you to hear it with music you know.
