belles mb200

[hifinutt]

i am using belles mb200 with my summit x . they seem to be an extremely good match after some worries raised in the hi fi plus review that they struggled with clx

they are very natural and control the sound very well. extremely reliable, class ab so fairly hot . a good match for the summit x
retail at 7 k [£] and fairly rare s/h but would be about 3.5k s/h

they are supposed to be 200 watts but i believe the output is far more

•Power............................200W rms into 8 ohms
•Power............................400W rms into 4 ohms
•Distortion......................THD and IM < 0.005%
•Damping Factor.....................................> 3000
•Peak Current.........................................64 amps
•Input Imped......................................100K ohms
•Freq Response.......................0.2Hz to 125k Hz
•Size.......................432mm x 88.9mm x 330mm
•Weight.................................................15.9 Kg each
•
beautifully made , single ended only and a good match for my arc ref 5se pre

 

[slowGEEZR]

Very nice. I notice they have a cutout on the front that is reminiscent of the front of my Pass Labs amps.

 

[hifinutt]

yes david belles makes very solidly built no nonsense amps and although my dealer was a bit nervous about me running stats off them they sound absolutely lovely. really wonderful open soundstage from the valve pre , really organic sound

although roy gregorys review of the mb200 suggested they might not be so good with the clx i guess that speaker is a heavier load perhaps ??

"Yet, as soon as you fire the MB-200s up you realise that there’s something special going on. There’s an instantaneous and lucid clarity that revels in instrumental detail without obstructing the musical flow: They’re clean and quick and clear, bold without being brash and crisp without being overstated. They’re also rather more powerful than the 200 Watt tag suggests, and I used them with a host of different speakers, ranging from the Goldmund Logos 1 and Spendor SA1 to the Eben Ayra C1, the Usher 6371 and Gershman Sonogram. The sheer variety on show there should tell you something about these amps’ unflappable character. Indeed, the only time I heard them in any discomfort was driving the ultra critical and clinically revealing MartinLogan CLX fullrange electrostatics, a combination that sounded uncharacteristically threadbare and strained through the upper registers. Neither product exhibits such tendencies in other company, making me wonder whether the Belles are more at home with more conventional loads than that presented by the big ‘stats"

 

[Rehan Azim Hashmi]

From the specs of the monaural amps seems they perform very well.

Audio Research corporation makes excellent audio gear. Excellent choice of preamp.

A novel idea perhaps requiring much expertise combining a valve preamp with solid state monaural amplifiers. And like in your case matches well and therefore sounds superb.

Many years ago I heard SL3's matched with Jadis source and valve pre connected to Audioplan solid state monaural amps. In my opinion this system produced the best sound of the HiFi exhibition in Austria.

Enjoy!