Belles Research Corporation? ?


I came across a power amp, looks to be 70's or 80's vintage called the Belles One, made by Belles Research Corporation. It's marked Made in the USA.

Any one heard of Belles Research?
rgodin
Perhaps I should have offered specy stuff - 80W into 8 ohms, 160W into 4 ohms - a great current provider. P.S. Dave is a nice guy. :)
Thanks for the information. The amp is the model with rack handles and the rocker switch. It is well built and heavy. It's pretty dusty and needs a good cleaning. I sent an e-mail to their info account to see if any type of documentation was available, but it looks like most of my questions have already been answered. Thanks again for helping solve this little mystery.
I have a "silver" Belles. I think it was his 1st amp. The amp serial # is 028 and pre amp is 014. I did have the amp rebuilt with a new power cord, speaker terminals, cleaning and tightening of hardware. This one has no handles, just a power switch. The pre amp has 2 volume knobs, record and listen switches, power is always on. I have been very happy with it. I run some old Snell Js that I have rebuilt as well. Snell sells rebuild kits that are awsome. I often wonder what this stuff is still worth. I think it is the most power for that money. I love the other postings. I tried to get a new box and ended up talking to his wife. She is as kind as him. I think he made the first couple models in his basement, then was bought by OCM. My friend had a 300W OCM version that did not sound quite as good.
Happy listening, he made great stuff.
The Belles Research I amplifier and preamplifer were my first pieces of high end amplification. I purchased them in 1983, to go with a Rega Planar II, Lustre tonearm and R100 MM cartridge.

At the time I purchased a pair of Pyramid Met 7 speakers, manufactured by Dick Sequerra.

By 1986 I replaced the Met 7's with a pair of 15 ohm Rogers LS 3/5A's.

I lived happily with this system for another 6 years before selling the Belles gear and purchasing some Naim Audio equipment.

The Belles I was 100 watts per channel. It retailed for somewhere around $800 in '83. I also purchased its companion preamp which sold for about $500 and change.

It was a good sounding setup - much better than the Kenwood KA 8100 integrated I had been using at the time.

And the amp in particular was very well constructed and a nice simple design.

I found the dual volume controls on the preamplifier redundant, however, when making recordings they were useful.
I also looked at some old Belles gear locally - the amp was a model 150 and the preamp was a Symphonic. The only information I could find indicated the equipment was made in the late 1980's or early 1990's. The equipment was very well made and sounded good, but I figured I would call Belles (Power Modules) to see if they still supported the gear and provided schematics, etc. I was told there were no schematics and no support for the equipment any more. Needless to say I was disappointed and didn't buy it. I have owned other gear from reputable American manufacturers that are still in business such as Audio Research, Conrad-Johnson, McIntosh, and Cary, and every time I have asked for documentation or support their has never been an issue. It leads me to question why a company would abandon its older products and not provide any support. No Thanks - I didn't buy the equipment.