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Belle clones?


dtr20

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The ad explains it well:

"You are bidding on one pair (2 speakers in total) vintage SHINALL loudspeakers. I believe model number AFS - 2.  If you are an audiophile and you know about custom speakers, then you know how rare these speakers truly are.  They were built by Gary Shinall out of Houston, Texas in the early 70's.  The research that I have done on these speakers shows that he had a working relationship with Paul Klipsch.  They were both friends and had a license from Paul W. Klipsch and the Klipsch Corporation to build these speakers. It is my understanding he built about 50 pairs and that was all.  Using some of the very components that Paul Klipsch was using for his famous Klipsch horn speakers. The information I found on the internet and in some of the audio forums, is that these speakers are very highly thought of.  They also say the cabinetry work was better than the Klipsch horn speakers."

 

It looks like a Belle variant with La Scala horns. 

 
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On 4/20/2017 at 0:36 PM, ricktate said:

He made the horn its not a k-400 its a copy. .....you could probably get real Belles for less than that..

I was curious about that in terms of valuation.  I know the Shinall was superbly built but despite that, does it command a premium price over a Belle of similar condition?

 

I think it does but I have no evidence to back that up.

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Anyone notice how the lower tweeter flange, overlaps the top of the midrange flange?

 

Not saying good or bad, just thought it was interesting.  Kind of shows (to me) someone trying to stuff too much into a too small of space (bad original design?) or maybe someone tried to retrofit something into there?

 

Seems to me if you are starting with a clean slate, you don't have to cram like that??

 

Looks like it might block part of the exit path of the tweeter horn

 

 

s-l1600 (1).jpg

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3 hours ago, wvu80 said:

I was curious about that in terms of valuation.  I know the Shinall was superbly built but despite that, does it command a premium price over a Belle of similar condition?

 

I think it does but I have no evidence to back that up.

Rarity doesn't always translate into higher prices.

Gary Shinall was authorized by Paul to make a "clones" of Klipsch speakers.  In this case, maybe even a predecessor to the Belle.

The value of such items are very subjective and will likely take the right collector to fetch the asking price.

 

I would think a later perfected Belle design would fetch a higher price than a similar pair of Klipsch Belles, but who knows.  

As the previous post shows, this might be a work in progress or may have even started as a 2-way and the tweeter was added later.

 

I think the rarity does make estimating value more difficult with much less statistics to go on.  

We don't know how this one sounds, it might be worth more as a piece of history than a daily use 2-channel setup.

Personally, I would opt for a nice pair of Belles.

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6 hours ago, Coytee said:

Anyone notice how the lower tweeter flange, overlaps the top of the midrange flange?

 

Not saying good or bad, just thought it was interesting.  Kind of shows (to me) someone trying to stuff too much into a too small of space (bad original design?) or maybe someone tried to retrofit something into there?

 

Seems to me if you are starting with a clean slate, you don't have to cram like that??

 

Looks like it might block part of the exit path of the tweeter horn

 

 

s-l1600 (1).jpg

 

Wouldn't that prevent a lot of the tweeters output from getting to the listener and get reflected and phase muddled ...

AKA -6db attenuator along with random phase corrector ??? Right, that's a cool feature then.

Cool.

Srinath.

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2 hours ago, Srinath said:

 

Wouldn't that prevent a lot of the tweeters output from getting to the listener and get reflected and phase muddled ...

AKA -6db attenuator along with random phase corrector ??? Right, that's a cool feature then.

Cool.

Srinath.

Or when they added the tweeter, they notched the top of the mid horn mount to not block the tweeter.

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BLUF: Real Belles did not use the K400 mid-horn, and the crossover network was tuned to reflect that.  The top section could simply not take the K400 because PWK intended to use the aesthetically pleasing "golden mean" in the Belle's cabinet design.  So, PWK developed a new mid-horn lens which, although not exactly "voiced" the same as the La Scala, would perform similarly.

 

The Belle was the original WAF speaker from Klipsch, and was named after PWK's first wife.  Before the Belle was designed and ready to build (somewhere around 1969-70), PWK had a La Scala as his center channel speaker at home between his K-horns for his personal three-speaker stereo array.  He literally went from a Heresy, to a Cornwall, to the La Scala, to the Belle (in that order) for his center channel speaker between flanking K-horns in his home...with the Belle being his final change.

 

Nowadays, most Klipsch fans are very much "into" the "sweet spot" thing, but that was not PWK's original goal.  For the three-speaker stereo array, he was more "into" having true stereo effect while listening from almost anywhere in the room, instead of just exactly between the left and right channel speakers.

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