I have been meaning to get round to servicing my Gales for a number of years now but as anyone who has ever taken a pair to bits knows it is a bit of a bugger of a job.

Been doing a few crossover upgrades for friends and t he sucess of those has spurred me on to do my own speakers, particularly as this pair have never sounded as good as the original ones I had back in the UK.

I knew that the current pair had been reworked before bit was kinda surprised at what greeted me when I finally got to the crossover. I say surprised because this pair always sounded pretty good, but the crossover had what looked like some very cheap parts in it and they were not even the correct values. Only completed the first crossover so no idea on how these will sound yet.

Here are the pics of before and after:

Edited August 28, 20205 yr by Ozcall

Got a schematic? 

401a's were the speakers i wanted back in the 70's - couldn't afford them!

 

Will be interested to see how your rebuild goes.

 

19 hours ago, dcathro said:

401a's were the speakers i wanted back in the 70's - couldn't afford them!

 

Will be interested to see how your rebuild goes.

 

I got my first pair back in the early 80's and they were awesome with a decent amp. Got thid pair about 10 yrs ago and while never as good as the first pair I still enjoyed listening to music on them.Let's hope all goes to plan.

As I began reassembling the first speaker my hand brushed against the surround of one of the midranges and it disintegrated. Finally found the correct replacement surrounds from a comapny in Holland and they are on their way. Fortunately the bass unit surrounds had been replaced  already and appear to be fine.

Will post some pics when I  am putting them back together.

Great speakers ,  my Gales and I will never part.  What powers your Gales ?

I am using a Rotel Michi RHB10 that I recapped a few years back. Left the main caps stock but replaced the Blackgates on the amp pcb's with Elna Silmic 2 and a polypropylene 4.7uf replacing the 4.7uf input electrolytic.

Do you have a link for the company in Holland that is supplying the replacement midrange surrounds ?

Here you go : https://www.repairyourspeakers.com/en/surrounds-by-size/2-4-inch/4-pee-foam-surround-for-repair-peerless/a-2530-10000068

The website suggests they won't ship to Australia.

 

However, I contacted them and they were happy to do so.  I just had to select USA at checkout and then explain in the comments that I was located downunder.  I sent an email asking them to confirm that they had changed the shipping details accordingly and they did this promptly.

 

Apparently they have had some grief trying to ship kits that contained glue to Australia in the past.  So they will ship speaker surrounds but not glue.

 

Anyway, the package arrived without drama.

Hey  Ozcall ,

How did your Gale resto end up ??

Edited January 28, 20215 yr by Leinster Lad

15 hours ago, Leinster Lad said:

Hey  Ozcall ,

How did your Gale resto end up ??

They are now done save for new grill cloth and reattatching the end caps. The whole job took much longer than expected as I had to source new midrange surrounds and fit them , redo the crossover to follow instructions supplied by Dave from Vintage Gale in the UK and I wasn't pushing myself as I had aonther pair of decent speakers to use while the Gales were offline.

Sound quality improvement is not subtle. I guess having good quality caps with much tighter tolerances has helped greatly with stereo imaging and depth. The essential coherence of the Gales has not diminished but there is greater transparency and the bass now has that tightness , punchiness and drive that reminds me of the orignal pair I had.

If you have a pair of the speakers with crossovers in original condition I would certainly recomend the restoration as most of the caps will have drifted far off value.

Just starting on a full restoration of another pair of 401's for a fellow SNA member so if you wopuld like yours done just pm me and we can discuss options.

51 minutes ago, Ozcall said:

They are now done save for new grill cloth and reattatching the end caps. The whole job took much longer than expected as I had to source new midrange surrounds and fit them , redo the crossover to follow instructions supplied by Dave from Vintage Gale in the UK and I wasn't pushing myself as I had aonther pair of decent speakers to use while the Gales were offline.

Sound quality improvement is not subtle. I guess having good quality caps with much tighter tolerances has helped greatly with stereo imaging and depth. The essential coherence of the Gales has not diminished but there is greater transparency and the bass now has that tightness , punchiness and drive that reminds me of the orignal pair I had.

If you have a pair of the speakers with crossovers in original condition I would certainly recomend the restoration as most of the caps will have drifted far off value.

Just starting on a full restoration of another pair of 401's for a fellow SNA member so if you wopuld like yours done just pm me and we can discuss options.

Look forward to listening to them soon 

sean

On 29/1/2021 at 1:22 PM, Gordon Macfarlane said:

They are now done save for new grill cloth and reattatching the end caps. The whole job took much longer than expected as I had to source new midrange surrounds and fit them , redo the crossover to follow instructions supplied by Dave from Vintage Gale in the UK and I wasn't pushing myself as I had aonther pair of decent speakers to use while the Gales were offline.

Sound quality improvement is not subtle. I guess having good quality caps with much tighter tolerances has helped greatly with stereo imaging and depth. The essential coherence of the Gales has not diminished but there is greater transparency and the bass now has that tightness , punchiness and drive that reminds me of the orignal pair I had.

If you have a pair of the speakers with crossovers in original condition I would certainly recomend the restoration as most of the caps will have drifted far off value.

Just starting on a full restoration of another pair of 401's for a fellow SNA member so if you wopuld like yours done just pm me and we can discuss options.

Hi Gordon,

Old thread, but I’m currently restoring a pair of GS401’s and wondering if you could tell me what the instructions from Vintage Gale entailed.

I am just going to recap with the same values. Or is there some kind of recommended modification I am not aware of?

Thanks,

Vinyl

3 minutes ago, VinylChef said:

Hi Gordon,

Old thread, but I’m currently restoring a pair of GS401’s and wondering if you could tell me what the instructions from Vintage Gale entailed.

I am just going to recap with the same values. Or is there some kind of recommended modification I am not aware of?

Thanks,

Vinyl

Hi David, sadly Gordon passed away last year. Sorry I can’t help with your question, I had my Gales restored locally but don’t know what parts were used.

. @Peter_F might be able to help?

 

Hi, wondering if anyone can help me with the crossover. I'm currently refurbishing a pair of GS401A, but the mid and tweeter level pots are pretty corroded on both crossovers and I'm not getting steady Ohm readings.  So I'm wondering what equivalent fixed resistors can I put in place of the pots if by chance I can't clean up the pots back to working order? Thanks.

 

 

I think your problem will be that, as these pots act as a level control:

1. replacing them with fixed resistors means you will be stuck at that particular level setting, and
2. how do you know what the current level setting is (given the corrosion)?  I'm presuming the speakers are sounding the way you want them to - so it's important you don't alter the relative driver levels?

 

31 minutes ago, andyr said:

I think your problem will be that, as these pots act as a level control:

1. replacing them with fixed resistors means you will be stuck at that particular level setting, and
2. how do you know what the current level setting is (given the corrosion)?  I'm presuming the speakers are sounding the way you want them to - so it's important you don't alter the relative driver levels?

 

I did a few many years ago ,

replaced all the internal cable 

the resistors 

and did bypass the pots ,I can not remember what value but I think it was something that made it at 12 o clock 

all values were as advised by our tech Jason ,who 

is well known in perth as one of the very best in the business ,

 

If anyone knows what the resistance value is supposed to be when the pot is in the "normal" position, that would great. Otherwise my first goal would be to either refurbish the current pots or find suitable replacements

Update: some rust/corrosion cleaner followed with application of deoxit d100L and the pots are back in spec. No need for new pots or bypass resistors.

Just for the record there is an error in the schematic 

In the midrange section the 7uf capacitor should go after the .3mH inductor.

Info on this here

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/gale-gs401-crossovers.383823/

like this

 

I am building four pairs of Gale 401 crossovers at the moment .All hardwired and bypassing the L pads and fuses.Using the original inductors where they are OK but everything else will be new.All the caps are off value so need replacing.

 

Could somebody explain why [ -] connection  on the midrange is taken from between the 3R9 and  6R2 resistors in the schematic above.

 

This seems strange but I have a pair of hardwired crossovers built by Jason Boyd in an old favourite pair where this has been done.They have always been the best sounding Gales I have owned. Configured for biamping .

 

There will possibly be a spare pair of  these crossovers if anybody needs them.

 

 

 

I'm not sure I need them, but happy to look at buying a pair of crossovers in the interests of having a spare pair here in SA.

 

We have five pairs of 401's in just a small group and I accept some of the blame for that!   I currently have several spares of all the drivers, but not the crossovers.