Named after Paul W. Klipsch's
first wife, the Belle Klipsch strikes a chord in
Joe Gorman.
Belle Klipsch
3-way, fully horn loaded loudspeakers
8 ohm
104 db/w/m efficiency
124 db maximum continuous output
100 watts power handling (continuous, 400 watts peak)
45 to 17.5 KHz +/- 3db frequency response
H 35.6" x W 30.1" x D 18.7"
125 pounds
There is a lot of Klipsch hatred immediately beneath the skin of many self-described "knowledgeable" audiophiles. Mention Paul W.'s last name at the local, big-dollar audio salon and see for yourself. There must be a chapter in The Bible of Snooty Audiophooldom that begins, "When one has disowned Klipsch products, one has taken the first steps toward discovery of the Holy Grail." I consider these types the Khmer Rouge of audio.
I don't speak with the Khmer Rouge
about my love affair with those products designed by Paul W. Klipsch. It
invites too much viscous assault on his products. Nearly always, the Khmer
Rouge have heard Klipsch products mated with the wrong electronics and
this forever is used as the example when they attack the Klipsch sound.
Of course these same people lust after effeminate, $10,000 monitors with
zero bass impact, Lilliputian sound staging and girlie-man dynamics. They
pontificate about the "accuracy" of their products and tolerate not heresy.
They justify all the blatant shortcomings of their speakers with talk of
"transparency" and try to intellectualize music itself. The problem is,
of course, great music is all about emotion. Musical emotion is expressed
primarily through dynamics. Music is both as minute is as a sliver and
as vast as the Montana skies. Music is both as quiet as a breath and as
thunderous as an assembled orchestra throttling up to Supernova. And the
accurate portrayal of dynamics is one area in which Klipsch speakers have
no peer any where near their price point.
A Beautiful Time Machine
Opening up the Belles was like opening up a time machine. The heavy-duty, brown, cardboard boxes, seem to have changed little over the 20 years I have been buying Mr. Klipsch's stuff. Once liberated from the boxes, I noticed how similar the crossovers and cabinetry are to Klipsch speaks of the late 70s. Oh, sure, a few things are no doubt different: I noticed the mid-horn (they still call it a squwaker) is some sort of super tough injected/resin plastic instead of the erstwhile metal and the veneer is attached to M.D.F., not plywood. But otherwise, it could be 1978. Charlie's Angels, Andy Gibb, pet rocks, click-clack balls, Barbarino, the whole nine yards dude.
Construction quality was excellent. And to prove it I totally disassembled them. My wife thought my brain seized.
"Why are you doing that to new speakers?" she asked.
I started to answer but she waved me off and rolled her eyes (a habit my 22 month old daughter is beginning to master). "Never mind," she said "I wouldn't understand."
But what an example of craftsmanship. Klipsch still builds a cabinet that could stand up to a Pamela Anderson Lee X-treme Fetish and Lubricant party. And I'm talking midgets, llamas, olive oil, aluminum foil, turkey basters, duct tape, well, I've heard that's what can be found there though I have no personal knowledge. Ah hem...
Of course, I needed to hook them up to the resident system to see what they could do when pumped some good ol' Audio Research juice.
So I did.
Ever Hear a Southern Belle Sing?
In setting up the Belles, I put them on the 14' wall of my 14'x 20' listening room. I placed them 26 inches from the back wall with 10 inches of toe-in and 5" from the side walls. This fired the speaks directly at my listening chair which sat about three feet from the rear wall. I would try many other positions but this set-up yielded the best balance of bass reinforcement, imaging and overall tonal balance.
Initially, I hooked up the Belles in bi-wire configuration. This requires one to snip two, red, jumper wires (16 gauge stranded copper) and use an auxiliary barrier strip for hooking up the mid and tweet wire. I used AQ Indigo on the mids/tweets and AQ type six on the bottom.
I powered up the ARC VT60 amp, ARC LS7 pre-amp, Thorens 320 MKII turntable, Ortofon X5-MC cartridge, Rotel phono stage and Pioneer PD 65 CD player (connected to AQ turquoise) and threw in Miles Davis Kind Of Blue CD (the new Columbia version) and before the first track was over I muted the volume.
The Belles seemed bright, glassy and screechy.
I knew something was wrong. I know Klipsch speaks have an unusually long break-in period and they can, at first, sound a bit harsh and aggressive but this was ridiculous.
I quickly fashioned jumpers from doubled up AQ type 4 wire and stuck them in where the red jumpers had been. I ran the AQ Indigo wire to the main inputs. That balanced the Belles' sound considerably. They still seemed a little bit aggressive but this characteristic would essentially vanish later.(You know, buy a pair of Klipsch, get out the soldering iron)
Don't bi-wire an new pair of Belles unless you prefer the sound of a mid and tweet horn section with all the restraint of David Crosby abandoned in a pharmaceutical warehouse. Wait until they break -in and then bi-wire them.
Additionally, this would be a good time to remind faithful readers that any Klipsch speaker requires considerable user tweaking. I would estimate that after 200 hours of moderate volume playing and the removal of an damn redundant elliptical filter in the high horn circuit, the Belles softened wonderfully.
Imagine a midrange so liquidy and seamless you'd swear a vocalist was in the room with you. Then picture an airy and quick tweeter. Finally imagine nearly unlimited and unconstrained dynamics with a sound stage that extends wall-to-wall and you start to have an idea of the potential of this speaker.
Detracting from this wonderful picture was a tubbiness in the high bass (160-200 Hz) and a lack of articulation in the lower bass. The compression mid-driver still glares occasionally. (A problem I would suspect relates to too high a compression ratio) The Belles barely managed to stay +/- 5db ball park from 50 Hz-16 KHz when measured uncorrected for room response! And as usual I had to go through the crossover circuitry to troubleshoot a sibilance problem that nearly drove me to madness.
After a few of the obligatory Klipsch tweeks, vocals were clear and intelligible at any listening level. In fact I had to keep track of the decibel level with a Radio Shack SPL meter so that I would not begin to damage my hearing and end up being the True Audio Review equivalent of Grandpa Simpson. None of the usual clues to music playing too loud were there. No distorted bass, hardening sibilants, no nasty compression, the Belles just sang loud and clear. Average listening levels were kept to the mid 90db range. When listening to moderately dynamic music at this level, the Belles would easily peak at 105-110db! Again with no compression or distortion.
When listening to the Blue Note LP reissue of John Coltrane's Blue Train, Trane's sax sounds lush and alive. The trumpet and trombone sound weighty and brassy. The Belle's room energizing bass enabled me to easily follow the acoustic bass throughout the record. I closed my eyes and the band was in the room. No little eight-inch-woofer-based speaker system is going to convince you that a jazz band showed up to run through a couple of numbers for you. They may convince you that you're listening to a tape of the jazz band but never that they've set up in your living room. The laws of physics disallow it. These Belles will convince you, however. They sound that big, that right and that convincing.
Ever heard a real snare drum get
snapped by a powerful drummer? You never forget what it sounds and feels
like. The Belles gave me both the sound and the feel of a real snare when
listening to several Chesky jazz CDs. Cymbals sounded like thin sheets
of brass (what! A cymbal sounding as if made of brass. Surely you jest?!)
Conclusion
If you're into the gimmickry of music reproduction you'll hate the Belles. They don't sound as if the front wave of sound starts somewhere behind them. Music doesn't loiter around the cabinet sidewalls. They don't project music in an "everything is just peachy" homogenous goo. The Belles throw music at the listener, all out in front like the real world does. That means the good the bad and the ugly.
I would keep any Klipsch product as far away from dry, tizzy, solid-state electronics as the continental U.S. would allow. But hook them up to a great, smooth, tube system and you get a room-energizing sound that makes all other presentations seem like the audio equivalent of a wet dishrag. (Except maybe for the Magneplaner 3.5s hooked to the 600 wpc Krell. That system nearly kept me locked up in the basement for 30 hours a week.) The Audio Research VT60/Klipsch Belle combo was an audio marriage that Paul himself would bless. And by the way, if you need any help setting these Belles up call Nanci Barnes (another Southern Belle, get it!? Southern Belle. Ya see, Nancy, oh never mind) at Klipsch technical department at 1-800-KLIPSCH. She can give you all the tips for proper placement in your room and any other technical data you might need. (and by all means mention my name. I think she's kinda sweet on me).
Paul Klipsch is still kicking around
down there in Hope: listening, refining, tweaking. And good thing too.
I tend to trust his ears and his science. I just wish his engineers would
go the last step, reduce the compression in the the mid-horns, revisit
the cross-over circuitry and time align these monsters!!! Anyway, I keep
giving him my money whilst doing his leg-work. I love the guy.
WARNING!!!
WARNING!!!
WARNING!!!
Also, you'll see two, small, black, rectangular 2-mfd capacitors setting side-by-side. You'll notice an identical capacitor that sets perpendicular to them. There is a jumper wire that goes from the lone cap to one of the side-by-side caps. Snip that wire. You've just cut the elliptical circuit. It stores energy and rings like crazy. This removes much nastiness.
We're not done.
Roll up two small balls of plumber's putty and smooth them over the backside of the metal tweeter horn. This will dampen any ringing.
Mount the crossover network on rubber bumpers available at the hardware store. Lastly, stuff the mid/tweet horn cabinet with as much polyfill as can be stuffed into this recess.
Don't ask me for the science. Me simple caveman audio reviewer. Huge positive difference.
A few easy tweaks and you are rewarded
with a world class speaker. Don't you just wish Klipsch would do this stuff
for you!? TAR.
