The Project G Stereo Was the Definition of Groovy

Dizzy Gillespie was a follower. Frank Sinatra purchased one for himself and provided to his Rat Load pals. Hugh Hefner obtained one for the Playboy Estate. Clairtone Audio Corp.’s Project G high-fidelity stereo, which debuted in 1964 at the National Furnishings Program in Chicago, was directly targeted at trailblazers. The intent was to make the streamlined, modern-day stereo an item of wish.

By the time the Task G was presented, the Toronto-based Clairtone was currently well valued for its attractive, premium stereos. “Every person understood about Clairtone,” Peter Munk, head of state and cofounder of the firm, flaunted to a paper writer. “The head of state had one, and if the regional vehicle motorist really did not have one, he desired one.” Unfortunately, with a price of CA $1,850– concerning the rate of a little cars and truck– it’s not likely that the regional vehicle motorist would certainly have in fact acquired a Task G. Yet he can still fantasize.

The style of the Task G appeared ahead from a desire.

” I desire you to think of that you are site visitors from Mars which you have never ever seen a Canadian living-room, not to mention a hi-fi collection,” is exactly how developer Hugh Spencer tested Clairtone’s designers when they initially began servicing the Task G. “What are the attributes that, despite style factors to consider, you want to see integrated in a brand-new hi-fi collection?”

The movie “I’ll Take Sweden” included a Task G, revealed right here with co-star Tuesday Weld. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk Estate

The outcome was a stereo like nothing else. As opposed to audio speakers, the Task G had audio worlds. As opposed to the hefty kitchen cabinetry normal of 1960s entertainment consoles, it had streamlined, tilted rosewood panels stabilized on a light weight aluminum stand. At over 2 meters long, it was also large for the ordinary living-room yet ideal for Hollywood films– Dean Martin had one in his turning Malibu bachelor pad in the 1965 movieMarriage on the Rocks According to the 1964 news release introducing the Task G, it was absolutely nothing much less than “a brand-new sculptured depiction of modern-day audio.”

The first-generation Task G had a premium Elac Miracord 10H turntable, while later on versions made use of a Garrard Laboratory Collection turntable. The transistorized framework and control board offered AM, FM, and FM-stereo function. There was room for saving LPs or for an optional Ampex 1250 reel-to-reel tape recorder.

The “G” in Task G meant “world.” The hermetically secured 46-centimeter-diameter audio worlds were constructed from rotated light weight aluminum and installed at the ends of the cantilevered base; inside were Wharfedale audio speakers. The audio worlds revolved 340 levels to predict a cone of audio and can be tuned to re-create the atmosphere in which the songs was initially videotaped– an opera house, sanctuary, bar, or concert hall.

Diane Landry, champion of the 1963 Miss Canada appeal contest, positions with a Task G2. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk Estate

At first, Clairtone meant to create just a handful of the stereos. As one author later on placed it, it was much more like an idea cars and truck “meant to offer Clairtone a mood of advanced cool.” At some point less than 500 were made. Yet the Task G still ended up being a symbol of mod ’60s Canadian style, winning a silver medal at the 13th Milan Triennale, the worldwide style event.

And Afterwards it mored than; the desire had actually finished. Eleven years after its beginning, Clairtone broke down, and Munk and cofounder David Gilmour blew up of the firm.

The birth of Clairtone Audio Corp.

Clairtone’s Peter Munk lived a vivid life, with a horrible begin and numerous superb and dreamlike components also. He was birthed in 1927 in Budapest to a thriving Jewish household. In the springtime of 1944, Munk and 13 participants of his household boarded a train with greater than 1,600 Jews bound for the Bergen-Belsen prisoner-of-war camp. They got here, yet after some weeks the train went on, at some point getting to neutral Switzerland. It later on arised that the Nazis had actually obtained large amounts of money and prized possessions from the passengers for allowing the train continue.

As a teen in Switzerland, Munk was a self-described event pet. He took pleasure in dance and dating and taking place lengthy ski journeys with pals. Schoolwork was not a leading concern, and he really did not have the qualities to participate in a Swiss college. His mommy, an Auschwitz survivor, motivated him to examine in Canada, where he had an uncle.

Prior to he can sign up, however, Munk blew his tuition cash delighting a girl throughout a journey to New york city. He after that located job selecting cigarette, made sufficient for tuition, and finished from the College of Toronto in 1952 with a level in electric design.

Clairtone cofounders Peter Munk [left] and David Gilmour imagined the firm as a high-end brand name. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk Estate

At the age of 30, Munk was making personalized stereos establishes for affluent customers when he and David Gilmour, that had a small company importing Scandinavian products, chose to sign up with pressures. Their concept was to produce high-fidelity tools with a modern Scandinavian style. Munk’s father-in-law, William Jay Gutterson, spent $3,000. Gilmour mortgaged his home. In 1958, Clairtone Audio Corp. was birthed.

Initially, Munk and Gilmour looked for a premium customers. They placed Clairtone as a high-end brand name, component of a sophisticated way of living. If you were the sort of female that paid attention to songs while putting on pearls and a bustier dress and relaxing on a shag carpet, your songs would certainly be using a Clairtone. If you were a male that clothed wisely and had an Arne Jacobsen Egg chair, you would certainly additionally be paying attention on a Clairtone. That was the modern-day way of living caught in the firm’s promotions.

In 1958, Clairtone generated its very first model: the monophonic 100-M, which had a long, reduced closet made from fueled oil teak wood, with a Double 1004 turntable, a Granco tube framework, and a set of Coral reefs audio speakers. It never ever entered into manufacturing, yet the following version, the stereophonic 100-S, won a Layout Honor from Canada’s National Industrial Layout Council in 1959. By 1963, Clairtone was offering 25,000 systems a year.

Peter Munk checks out the Task G production line in 1965. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk Estate

Layout was constantly front and facility at Clairtone, not simply for the items yet additionally for the typography, promotions, and also the yearly records. Yet absolutely nothing in the very early layouts signified the significant turn it would certainly take with the Task G. That transpired as a result of Hugh Spencer.

Spencer was not a designer, neither did he have experience creating customer electronic devices. His day work was creating collections for the Canadian Broadcast Corp. He sought advice from on a regular basis with Clairtone on the firm’s graphics and signs. The only stereo he ever before created for Clairtone was the Task G, which he initially designed as a wood box with tennis rounds stayed with the sides.

From both style and high quality viewpoints, Clairtone achieved success. Yet the firm was often hemorrhaging money. In 1966, with wonderful excitement and huge federal government motivations, the firm opened up a cutting edge manufacturing center in Nova Scotia. It was an inequality. The regional labor force really did not have the essential abilities, and the bordering framework could not take care of the manufacturing. On 27 August 1967, Munk and Gilmour were dislodged of Clairtone, which ended up being the home of the federal government of Nova Scotia.

Regardless of the death of their very first firm (and the federal government query that adhered to), Munk and Gilmour stayed pals and took place to come to be serial business owners. Their following endeavor? A hotel in Fiji, which entered into a big resort chain because nation, Australia, and New Zealand. (Gilmour later on established Fiji Water.) After That Munk and Gilmour purchased a golden goose and cofounded Barrick Gold (currently Barrick Mining Corp., among the biggest gold mining procedures on the planet). Their services all had ups and downs, yet both guys ended up being exceptionally affluent and kept in mind benefactors.

Protecting Canadian style

As an instance of legendary style, the Task G appears like an excellent sampling for gallery collections. And in 1991, Frank Davies, among the developers that helped Clairtone, contributed a Task G to the just recently released Layout Exchange in Toronto. It would certainly be the very first things in the DX’s irreversible collection, which looked for to protect instances of Canadian style. The gallery swiftly ended up being Canada’s facility for the promo of style, holding greater than 50 programs every year to instruct individuals concerning exactly how style affects every element of our lives.

In 2008, the gallery opened up The Art of Clairtone: The Making From a Layout Symbol, 1958– 1971, an event showcasing the firm’s distinct visuals style, commercial style, design, and digital photography.

David Gilmour’s other half, Anna Gilmour, was the firm’s very first internal version. Nina Munk/The Peter Munk Estate

Yet what occurred to the DX itself is a pointer that any kind of gallery, nonetheless deserving, should not be considered provided. In 2019, the DX quickly shut its irreversible collection, and managers were billed with deaccessioning its items. The good news is, the Royal Ontario Museum, Carleton and York Colleges, and the Archives of Ontario, to name a few, had the ability to approve the artefacts and buddy archives. (The Project G imagined at top is currently at the Royal Ontario Gallery.)

Scientists at York and Carleton have actually been functioning to digitize and practically reconstitute the DX collection, via thexDX Project They’re utilizing the Linked Framework for Networked Cultural Scholarship (LINCS) to transform woven and contextualized information concerning the collection right into a searchable data source. It’s a worthwhile objective, also if it’s not rather the like having every one of the artefacts and sustaining documents literally with each other in one location. I confess to really feeling both delighted concerning this digital workaround, and additionally a little depressing that a merged collection that when spoke with the historic value of Canadian style no more exists.

Component of a continuing series considering historic artefacts that welcome the limitless possibility of innovation.

A concise variation of this write-up shows up in the February 2026 print concern as “The Task G Stereo Defined 1960s Cool.”

Referrals

I initially found out about Clairtone’s Task G from a panel on Canada’s style heritage arranged by York College chronicler Jan Hadlaw at the 2025 yearly conference of the Culture for the Background of Modern technology.

The Art of Clairtone: The Making of a Design Icon, 1958–1971 by Nina Munk (Peter Munk’s child) and Rachel Gotlieb (McClelland & Stewart, 2008) was the buddy publication to the exhibition of the very same name held by the Layout Exchange in Toronto. It was an indispensable source for this column.

Reporter Garth Hopkins’s Clairtone: The Fluctuate of an Organization Realm ( McClelland & Stewart, 1978) consists of numerous meetings with individuals related to the firm.

Clairtone is a brand-new docudrama by Ron Mann that appeared while I was composing this item. I have not had the ability to see it yet, yet I wish to do so quickly.

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