A solo Gryphon showroom in L.A.

Often in these pages (and in Industry Update), we have reported ways various brands have experimented with the traditional hi-fi-retail formula. An example: the single-company dealership, adopted most recently by the Vervent Audio Group, parent company to Focal and Naim.¹

- BY JULIE MULLINS

The latest to set up a single-brand dealership is Gryphon Audio Designs, which is preparing to open a “mono-brand” showroom in Los Angeles. Gryphon’s implementation, though, is a radical departure from previous experiments in one respect: It's in the Pacific Design Center (PDC), a large (1.6 million square feet) multiuse facility that caters to the design community, including professionals in interior design, architecture, and the arts, as well as design enthusiasts. The idea is to give Gryphon products more exposure to architects, designers, and design enthusiasts. The PDC is not accessible to the broader public. Assuming all goes well, the Gryphon store will be open by the time this issue hits newsstands.²

Opening a US showroom makes sense because, as Gryphon's director of US sales and marketing Anthony Chiarella told Stereophile, in recent years the US has become Gryphon's second-largest market. The L.A. store will remain the only Gryphon “monostore” in the United States, though plans are in the works for Gryphon-only showrooms in other key markets, in cities with a concentration of high-end retailers in other luxury categories. The goal is to have 8-10 Gryphon stores worldwide within two or three years. The US was first because Gryphon self-distributes here via the aforementioned US subsidiary; that made setting up this arrangement simpler than it would be in markets that rely on independent distributors.