Gale 401's

I have a pair of fully refurbished GS401A speakers, here are my thoughts on them:

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/7324

If you live in the UK, David Smith at www.vintagegale.com is an invaluable source  of help if you want to have your speakers refurbished, a wonderful guy to work with. These speakers may be +40 years old, but, after refurbishment they will give a lot of very expensive speakers a run for their money. Plus, they look stunningly beautiful IMHO.

It was the first stand mount that took my breath away. I thought the guy that owed them was kidding about how they just disappeared and imaged so well in the showroom. They were set up vertical on Bose 901 stands. LOL the Bose 901s sat in the corner and these took their place.. No sub speakers, nothing fancy.

A Fisher tube preamp, Phase Linear Solid State power amp, Tuner, Turntable and some cables. About an hour of moving speakers. I remember we flipped them upside down and the tweeter sounded quite a bit better.

It was the first time, I could close my eyes and place where the band members were on the stage right in front of you. but NOT get the WIDE baffle (at the time) bass BANG BOOM crap. 10-12 foot triangle set up.

The new War album had Low Rider and Cisco Kid. Lot of congas in that music with great vocals. Great speakers sound great, but bad speakers sound BAD, kind of music.. These were really really great. James Brown kind of funk o delic delight.. LOL

1-200 watts @ 8 ohms and double down to two (2) is great, but class d will do the trick at a great price. The speakers are a hard load, but todays amps no problem.. I wouldn’t use Valves (Tube) power amps, these speakers dip pretty low.. BUT the preamp side I sure would.

I make no bones about it. I like tone control so I CAN color the music the way I like..

Brought back some memories.. Great speakers..

Regards

Assume you are in the UK (Richer Sounds).

Some of the Creek and Roksan amplifier models, though not super high wattage, were very stable running into 4 ohm loads.

Probably other local brands as well, but guessing that the two mentioned should be readily available on the used market for a reasinable price.

DeKay

I would invest in a quality vintage 100+watt/channel power amp and pre amp to power them so you can make them shine a lot of the british speakers like current to sing and buying vintage will save you a lot of money over new and sound better too.

Sorry for your loss. @douglas_schroeder ’s distinction between the casual "good enough" listener and the more serious efforts at trying to reproduce an approximation of live or real music in your room is a good one. Having said that, you might nonetheless choose to keep the speakers, not only for sentimental value, but for the coolness factor if you can afford to treat them as a core part of a secondary system which doesn’t require that you invest serious money in the overall system. I remember them from back in the day, doubt I ever heard them, they are sort of Bose 901-ish on stands but looked more expensive. To me, they are cool in a dated modern design aesthetic. You might have some fun with this even if you don’t intend to become a hobbyist, etc.