Vintage HiFi Club Gale GT 2101 - Turntable

Gale GT 2101 – Turntable

Gale GT 2101
Type: Turntable

Country: UK
Year: 1974

Chi, come me, ha vissuto negli anni 70/80 l’epoca d’oro dell HiFi, il nome Gale evoca immediatamente l’immagine di un oggetto trasparente, elegante e da sogno, un oggetto su cui porre un magnifico LP che, per la trasparenza della struttura del GT 2101, sembrava fluttuare nell’aria.

English Version

Gale GT 2101 Turntable

Gale GT 2101 . Chi, come me, ha vissuto negli anni 70/80 l’epoca d’oro dell HiFi, il nome Gale evoca immediatamente l’immagine di un oggetto trasparente, elegante e da sogno, un oggetto su cui porre un magnifico LP che, per la trasparenza della struttura del GT 2101, sembrava fluttuare nell’aria.

Questo oggetto è il giradischi Gale GT 2101, forse il componente più mitizzato nella storia dell’HiFi.

La sua inconsueta forma ad Y e il plexiglass, materiale con cui è costruito, rappresentavano, specialmente per quei tempi, una novità. Anche tecnicamente era innovativo.

Aveva il motore a trazione diretta a controllo elettronico e le sospensioni sui tre bracci della Y erano smorzate con un sistema inusuale.

Infine il piatto non era circolare come la produzione dell’epoca, ma anch’esso a forma di Y sempre in plexliglas con dei contrappesi sulle tre braccia.

Questa modalità, faceva si che l’LP toccasse il piatto in tre punti soltanto, minimizzando così il contatto per limitare, quanto possibile, la trasmissione delle vibrazioni al cantilever. Questo poer evitare la generazione di un segnale che si sovrapponesse a quello estratto dal disco.

Come suonava?

Dato il costo di 2.500.000 Lire, (all’epoca un Trascriptor o un Linn Sondek costavano circa 400.000 Lire), il GT 2101 ebbe una diffusione molto limitata e quindi poche sono le testimonianze sul suono di questa macchina, che comunque aveva fama di essere un giradischi dall’emissione chiara e musicale.

Se però facciamo riferimento alle modalità costruttive, possiamo azzardare l’ipotesi che le tecniche usate miravano ad ottenere un giradischi esente da interferenze esterne, ed il suono doveva essere davvero orientato verso la neutralità e naturalezza, senza sfociare nell’esaltazione dell’estremo superiore e con un buon controllo delle basse frequenze.

Per concludere direi che il Gale GT 2101 rimane un oggetto bellissimo e ancora oggi desiderato; un giradischi che personalmente mi piacerebbe molto possedere.

Massimo Piantini

Vintage HiFi Club

Quote Usd 2.300-2.800 Eur 2.000-2.500

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/legendary-gale-gt-2101-appears-my-door

Legendary Gale GT 2101 Appears At My Door

By Michael Fremer • Posted: Aug 13, 2012 • Published: Aug 14, 2012

An Analogplanet.com reader emailed to ask if I’d like to spend a week with his Gale turntable. I knew the Gale loudspeaker from the 1970s but was unfamiliar with the turntable so I figured, “why not”?

Shortly thereafter he arrived at my door with this unusual looking turntable that resembled an Oracle Delphi, except that it was from the 1970s and so came first! Now this was getting interesting.

I started researching it and the more I uncovered the more intriguing it became. The “rare and exotic” and incredibly beautiful turntable was a project initiated by the late Ira Gale, an American “ex-pat” living in the U.K. He collaborated on the design with the now legendary Dr. Sao Win.

The two had met at college in California. Gale went to the UK to study music at the Royal Academy of Music, while Win went to Cambridge University. The two shared the patents on the design. The photo I took hardly does it justice. It’s not easy photographing a transparent turntable.

http://0339436.netsolhost.com/WordPress/gale-gt2101-turntable/

A Revolution in Turntable Design

The audio world was turned upside down by the introduction of the Gale GT2101 turntable at Audio Fair, Olympia, London, in October of 1974. A number of industry icons were instantly dethroned.

It was lust at first site for the entire audio world, and a Gale turntable on a magazine cover was commonplace. Not bad considered they only made 60 of them!……

galeaudio.com

http://0339436.netsolhost.com/WordPress/

New

Posted on August 24, 2012 by emmaco

Last Updated November 12th, 2013

Before & After & Ready to Fly

David Smith has become quite the speaker repair maven over the years, transforming tired old Gale speakers into spitfires once again. Gale owners from all over the world are now bringing their old friends to his shop as airline luggage! This transformation took place in less than a week and included the crossovers. Quite the difference…

http://0339436.netsolhost.com/WordPress/ira-gale-story/

Ira Gale Story

From all accounts Ira Dennis Gale was a genius, able to “talk his way in and out of anything”. He also tended to “stir the pot”, and may have enjoyed doing so occassionally.

Born on December 4th, 1942, Ira was the son on an accountant and his office manager wife. He had two younger siblings- Bonnie and Bruce Gale. His uncle was an aerospace engineer. The Gale family lived in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles during his formative years, later moving to Sherman Oaks, California as a teenager.

Dedicated to the works of Ira Gale

It took a year for the news to distributed throughout the world. The Gale turntable appeared on the cover of the October 1975 Stereo Review and in the April 1976 Playboy magazine (see above). According to a factory brochure, the Gale GT2101 came with an SME 3009 Type II or no arm at all. It appeared on magazine covers throughout the world and became the ultimate hi-fi status symbol.

Carter’s work has won numerous awards, including the Prince of Wales Award for Industrial Innovation (1981-85), the Duke of Edinburgh Prize for Elegant Design (1967)^[1] , and numerous Design Council awards. Carter was President of Society of Industrial Artists & Designers during 1974–75, appointed Royal Designer for Industry (1974), was a trustee of the Conran Boilerhouse Foundation, chairman of the Design Museum, and chairman of the Royal Society of Arts Design Board (1983). Carter was appointed a commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980.