SET Tube Question

You shouldn't even need a sub with the Belles. Even a 3 watt 2A3 based amp will sound great on them. These are great speakers to try out very low power, warm sounding amps.
Ultimately, a pair of Cary 300B's would be awesome but starting with a pair of Decware 5 watt amp or Antique sound labs would be a really cheap way to get into this.
If you are new into tubes, stay away from vintage gear to avoid unneccessary problems.

Vintage Klipsch speakers together with SET amplification is a match made in heaven IMO. You are starting out at the top from my perspective. I think which SET amp you decide on (which tube type) may be determined by listening to the different types which is unfortunately not always easy to do since so few dealers seem to have a wide selection. Your musical tastes and expectations would be a good indicator of which direction to take, as well as your budget. A good middle ground is the 300B tube offering a bit more of a low end then the flea-powered options that emphasize the midrange at the expense of low end. Your Belle Klipsch can be driven with a match so power is not really an issue. As far as which amps to look at, I think George Wright's amps make a good pairing with Klipsch. See his offerings here. I also might look at Cary's SET offerings as they are plentiful and come up used at decent prices as well as being highly regarded. I have one of their preamps which is built like a tank and works well with my SET amps. Not sure about books, but there is plenty of info online by doing a bit of searching. A good starting place would be the SET ward over at AudioAsylum which is here. Also you may find further resources on the single driver speaker site here.

Hope that is of some help.

Good luck...I think you will be pleased with that combination if you do it right.

Marco

You may also want to try these sites. Each has a user forum and SET products for sale, both kit and assembled.

http://www.welbornelabs.com/

http://www.bottlehead.com/

I recently purchased a pair of Belle Klipsch speakers and I use the Wright Sound WPA3.5 Mono Blocks that use the 2A3 tube that Paul Klipsch is known to favor. There is also a forum at the Klipsch website. Ask those who "know". I have learned a great deal reading the information that flows in that forum. I have a rather large dedicated room, 20X30 with cathedral ceiling to 14ft. The WPA3.5s have more than enough power to fill my room. Congratulations and Enjoy!!

I have heard Cary SET amps are the best of the best but you should have an high efficient speakers or horn speakers. I had a pair of Cary CAD300B Signature monoblock amps which produced awesome sound (I still like them) but now upgrade to 805 Anniversary Edition since my monitor speakers need more juice. Good luck.

Another very appropriate option would be the Sophia Electric Baby amplifier, which uses 2 6P1T triode tubes per channnel in a push-pull configuration yielding 10 watts per channel. I use one with my Klipsch Chorus with very good results. It is very low noise (-95 dB) and ultra-wide bandwidth. It has very good bass extension and articulation, a smooth, sweet midrange, and simply fantastic high-frequency performance. Best of all is the low price. Here's a link:
http://www.sophiaelectric.com/

Many of the other amps mentioned are lower in power, higher in noise, and are lacking at the frequency extremes. The plus for the 2A3 and 300B SET amps is mainly a glorious midrange, which most folks are prepared to sacrifice bass and treble performance to get. But I've grown too accustomed to having excellent bass and treble to go that route -- at least for now...

There isn't a specific need to go low powered just because your speakers have very high efficiency. I run Rogue M120s in push-pull mode at 120 watts with my La Scalas - quite a bit of power. As Plato mentioned, higher-powered amps generally have more LF and HF extension than flea amps. High-powered tube amplifiers can sound stunning and effortless with these speakers, and drive them effectively to their frequency extremes. It really comes down to preference. I didn't care for the M120s in triode mode (about 60w) with either KT88s or EL34s - I preferred the fullness the additional power gave the sound. Furthermore, when I used solid state amplification, I found times when wattage of at least 200w was necessary, even with 104db sensitivity. It all depends on what you're trying to reproduce, and to what degree.

Just because you have horns doesn't mean you have to run SET (gosh, or even tubes, though I prefer them at the moment!). Some solid state amps can match very well with Klipsch heritage speakers. I'd imagine a Pass Aleph 3 would be an interesting listen.

Iain:

Try running a full site search of "Belle Klipsch" @ audioasylum.com and you will then be able to read quite a bit about your speakers and tried/true amplification.

Only agree with the advice given in two of the above posts (numbering seven as I post) based on personal experience with SET amps and my advice is to visit Audio Asylum, spending your time @ first using the search functions.

Mwilson makes some good points about the benefits of running higher power even with high efficiency speakers. In fact, as much as I like the Sophia Baby amp I mentioned above, I feel I need more power at times. The sound becomes a little strained when I push the amp. Because of that, I recently bought a higher powered, class-A, solid-state amp to try. A little more headroom would be nice. :)

Thank you for all the recomendations I didn't expect that much of a response. It looks like I have a little more research to do before I by my preamp/amp.
Thanks again,
Iain