Belles Greatest Integrated ever! The Virtuoso

Remember that Johnny Rutan is a big fan of Belles too, and I have very reason to put much faith in his judgement.

For the most part, many Audiophiles are preoccupied with whats on the radar, in the mags, and their demigod reviewer's they worship. If your an Audiophile/Musicphile with an intense passion for music, and your ongoing search in recent years has not fully satisfied your quest, Belles maybe your final choice. A real keeper. During the past several months I spent considerable time looking under the hood of many Belles components and was stunned by the very high quality parts and low noise circuit boards in their units, that are typically found in components in the $10K to $20K range. I'm not aware of any other company that has these type of high quality parts in their units in the same price range. I went to the Belles address from their website on Google images and it takes you directly to Dave's house, which is a modest middle class home.
He keeps his production factory completely off the radar. His high quality parts remind me of Spectral. The quality of sound from his recent Aria line, is his best work ever. Resulting in a truly perfect balance of the richness of tube sound and the slam of solid state. Belles products are musical treasures, not designed for the commercial side of the high end industry. Products that are produced in smaller numbers, for a limited group of very passionate music lovers. Thats Daves' only purpose.

audiozen - I was one of those people that was obsessed with the audio magazines, the reviews, scouring the internet to find that elusive hidden gem of an audio component that I just knew was out there - I just had to find it. After a good long while, I was hitting the wall, burned out from the chase, and decided the only way to cut to the real chase was to go listen to some stuff and let my ears make the decision. I enjoy reading reviews, and always have, but in retrospect I realized that I had wasted an awful lot of time that could have been better spent listening to music on a great system, and be done with it. Done for the time being; you know how this "musicphile" addiction is!
The only brand that I owned for a long time was Rotel, and I really enjoyed their electronics for many years. An integrated amp, a small receiver back years ago, a very nice cd player and even an analog tuner that I still own. You get used to what you have, but you don’t know what your missing until you start surveying the audio landscape and allow your ears to take a test drive. Many of the magazines are afraid to publish a bad review, not wanting to offend the manufacturer and lose their ad dollars. You aren’t getting an honest assessment, and often the conclusion of the article is not positive or negative.... closing with the likes of " though it may not be for everybody, this amp, speaker, whatever deserves to be heard, and might be just the ticket for your audio needs." Vague and no feathers ruffled.
The Belles Aria sounds amazing to me. My Vandersteen speakers sounded very nice with the Rotel amp, but the Aria brought them to life, and put me front and center in front of the orchestra. The improvement over the Rotel was not subtle.
Having met and spoken with David Belles on several occasions, I can attest with certainty that he is incredibly talented, cares deeply about his customers, and as you stated, audiozen, he prioritizes musicality over all else. He emphasized this goal when I heard him speak about his products, and every time I listen to this amp I’m reminded of just how successfully he has achieved his goals.

I won’t tell you that Belles is the best, but it has been great for me, a great match for my speakers, and to my ears offers a level of audio performance that is simply staggering, at a price that will put a smile on your face.

2chfreak..Well said. I miss the old Rotel line in the late 80's with their all black components with beautiful wood side panel's. Standard Hi-Fi, Seattle's first record store that opened up in 1941, now closed, was the first Rotel dealer in Seattle. I think their products back then were much higher quality and sounded better. The record store drove their wall hanging speakers with the Rotel gear. Denon was the same way back then. Their components at that time were gorgeous. I have in storage for the past three years my Denon GL-2560 SE CD player from 1992. It was rare to find in the states and was special order only. Price was at $1100.00. My Audio friend from China, now in Seattle bought one in Hong Kong and sold it to me brand new in the box for $600.00. Its a gold unit with rosewood panel's and has pitch control and weighs 38 pounds and has eight Burr-Brown DAC's under the hood custom designed by Denon. The good old days of digital. Look forward to my purchase of the Virtuoso in March. My final retirement system this Spring will be made up of the Virtuoso integrated, the Ascend Acoustics Sierra Tower with the NrT tweeter, the Marantz SA-8005 SACD player, and the I-Fi Itube2 tube buffer which will be hooked up to the Marantz outputs to the Virtuoso inputs. Marantz quality with tube sound. A great high value recipe.

audiozen - Thanks. It’s harder than ever to listen to even a small percentage of all that’s available, since there are way fewer hifi shops in business. The answer for people who live too far away from dealers is to take advantage of policies like Ascend has, where you can audition for a time period, and get a refund if you don’t like it. In the case of that particular brand, based on what you have conveyed to me, there aren’t too many speakers being sent back.
I bought a Rotel bx-840 2 integrated back in 1988 at cost, the dealer dropping the line because "no one has ever heard of it", and he kept his better selling NAD. He admitted that the Rotel was built better, and more reliable. I had it for almost 27 years. It was a great amp, never a malfunction, and sounded as good as new to me when I sold it 3 or 4 years ago. I bought their RCD 991 cd player in 2000, their best cd player at that time for about 1K, listed for $1300, had it for 15 years and sold it... part of my gradual upgrade process. The last speakers before the Vandersteens, some B&W "V" series small stand mounts, the entry level line of B&W at that time - very early ’90’s - were $300 new, had them for 20 years and they were damn good. Vinyl clad, 12 lbs a piece, had them on Sanus steel speaker stands and I always enjoyed listening to them. So now it’s Belles, Vandersteen, and a Rotel RCD 1570 slot load cd player that I bought last year. No TT, maybe in the future. I home dock Sirius sat radio through my amp, not great fidelity because it’s so compressed, but another listening option. I have Apple internet radio that I should connect to my amp, would really provide a ton of music. I agree, that older Rotel was built like a tank, pretty bullet proof. Sounded great for the price, for sure. The Rotel dealers always told me they loved it because returns were very rare.
Denon kind of faded away from the 2 channel scene, at least in the states. That got heavy into home theater, right? But yes, their components were nice. That old Denon cd player of yours sounds like a brute! 38 pounds is unheard of these days, unless you go with something really exclusive, perhaps Esoteric or similar brand perhaps. Those old Pioneer cd players were nice build quality, and were solid. If I didn’t get the Rotel cd player, I probably would have got a Marantz. They always sounded very nice anytime I happened to hear one playing at a dealer. This system you are piecing together is going to be very impressive, I have to believe. Do you already have the Marantz 8005, or is that on the to buy list? All I can tell you is that based on my time listening to the Aria, you are going to be in audio Nirvana when you fire up the Virtuoso. I love integrated amps; the good ones give up very little to separates, and I like the one box space saving, as well as fewer cables to buy. The Virtuoso will not disappoint if I know Dave Belles even remotely. I’ll be interested to hear how it sounds, once your plan comes together. I really enjoy your take on the audio world, and your enthusiasm!