Belles, as with all single driver speakers have glaring limitations, namely restricted bandwidth, none of the pristine highs from the reputable companies, hot upper mids and premature bass rolled off. This is what you should know before jumping right in the realm of single driver speakers, within its useable frequencies they shine on simpler music at a reasonable loudness. Speakers to party, you got better options. On the flip side, transparency, articulation, phase coherency, soundstage and undoctored sound, for what they offer, they are hard to beat.
My decision for single driver speakers is well thought out, a natural progression for the quest of natural instrument fidelity. Took a couple of months to get the grasp the demeanour of Belles as with any other speakers. Once broken in, I knew what I'm supposed to do, to nurse hot upper mids and beefing up the upper bass, adding warmth without a subwoofer. Due to the high sensitivity of single driver speakers, mating a subwoofer to single driver speakers is close to impossible. Less is more here, I ditched the super tweeters as well. To tube amplification or not to tube amplification challenges one's wisdom, tube amplification adds the dire warmth to mend single driver speakers lacks tone body and to tame the hot upper mids. Alnico magnet is thoroughly considered the lifesaver. One stone two birds but offer no help on bass control. Nay, not following the herds I'm going with a conservative power rated class AB solid-state amp. I want to squeeze as much bass from my Belles. I'm not going to lie that an articulate and transparent budget amp is difficult to find. Moreover, I want a passive pre to safeguard sonic purity, not an active pre. The more gain stage the more doctored the sound, this is no rocket science. Luck in on my side, I found that one little amp.
As you can see, I'm a purist, I live with the inherited limitations. Next, taking no prisoners the back and forth requalification of cables and speaker positioning. We are spoilt for cable choice and cabling is an integral of a system. It's no surprise one incompatible cable ruins the final sound. This cable qualification is done concurrently with speaker positioning. So, cabling is a tone colour device, hands down. Cables are meant to be heard. They highlight and downplay some sonic attributes as all speaker designs are flawed, some are worse than the others. Neutrality in audio is only make-believe.
My system set up picked up pace after the cables were sorted out, each and every single one of them was repeatedly verified of its place in my system. I don't believe in cable loom sale pitch for the fact that the sound coming out from each component is somewhat altered, what's the benefit of using the same interconnect make? Cable loom will only promote the cable characteristics. Resonance feet and other accessories are next. I skip the boring arduous tweaking but to say the least, the entire process took 15 gruelling months, this time, it was accomplished much sooner than my preceding speakers.
Fast forward, the earthy tone, checked, the hot upper mids, checked, the soundstage, checked, the bass authority, checked, the standing waves, checked. Anchor up, let's my system begins the musical voyage.
Honestly, I don't think I'll ever want to disturb my system equilibrium again. This system stays as it is until my passion dies. You know what I walked away with something from this system set up? A musical system. I believe many will find the exquisite highs of exotic tweeters found wanting, to me it's a small price to pay for overall coherency. Organic presentation is the gold standard adhering to Fletcher-Munson Curve. So, I urge you guys to explore musicality and enjoy music at a higher degree of appreciation.
