So I bought the Willsenton R-800i

@jbhiller ​​@chmaiwald you guys still use tube amps with Cornwalls?

How did you placed those speakers in your room?

(distance from front wall,between them and from your chair)

@gregoriomtb16 I still use the Willsenton with Cornwalls. It´s a very good combination I´d say.

The speakers are about 8ft. apart and just a few inches from the wall, maybe 8. They are in our combined kitchen/living room and the best listening position is actually behind the family sofa the middle of which is also about 8ft from each speaker, maybe even less. The best listening position is a few more feet to the back, there´s our kitchen table we spend a lot of time at. Sure, the furniture interferes probably but the sound there is still great in my book. Realities of having a family...

When they were still new I built platforms with tiny weels to easily move them. While in the beginning I toed them in from time to time and found the more direct sound more pleasing I stopped doing so after a while. And when I toed them in again recently, pointing straight at me on the sofa, I found that the stage and depth suffered. So now they are pointing into the room again.

Thank you @chmaiwald 

I posted this on StereoNet, so I figured I’d post it here too.

My personal R800i blew a 300B tube (Gold Lion) and wouldn’t bias correctly (no matter how far I turned the adjustment down for either channel, it wouldn’t get within the proper range on the blue VU meters). So I sent it off to Scott Frankland.

When Scott got to the amp (he’s very busy) he noticed a few design issues. The biggest was that both channels share plate voltage nodes, but that there are no bypass caps for this. He added 18 "critical" resistors and 4 bypass caps to address this issue.

A smaller issue was that there wasn’t enough filtration to account for all the hum, so we’ve added more.

He also mentioned this was a curious design for audio, but it wasn’t unheard of:

"The Willsenton R800i operates the 805 as a power grid tube, which is allowed for rf transmitting tubes but not often seen in audio amps. This means that the operating point is below the diode line on the plate curves, in the area of positive grid bias. This causes the grid to draw a certain amount of current continuously. It’s a technique in rf that allows the tube to be pushed to deliver more power. Of course, that grid current has to be supplied by the driver stage, which in this case is the 300B. The R800i operates the 300B as a cathode follower direct coupled to the 805 grid. This is certainly unusual in audio, but not unheard of. I recall that the early Wavac amps used this (or a similar technique)."

I also had Scott modify/upgrade the amp. The mods Scott performed were (in addition to the design issues):

• Upgraded caps (VCap ODAM)
• Upgraded resistors to 1% values (from ~3% with stock)

The amp was burned in and then I got a follow-up email from Scott:

"Clearly the Willsenton 300B’s and 805’s were designed to work together, and clearly other brands don’t. I set the bias range to be just below 100mA so that the full range of bias would be available as the tubes age, but I’m concerned that the Gold Lion’s may not bias down with the current adjustment. I recommend that you send me the Gold Lion 300B’s (or have them shipped here) in case a further adjustment is needed."

So, I have had a set of PSVane 300B’s and 805’s shipped to Scott so he can swap those in and see how the bias needs to be adjusted. Right now the amp has the stock Willsenton 300B’s and a set of LinLai 805 DG’s in it (the original Willsenton 805’s were not included with the amp when I bought it from the previous owner).

Perhaps some of this info will help other R800i owners. I like the sound of the R800i enough that I’ve sold my R8 (even though I like the R8). I am hoping these mods deliver the performance and reliability I’m looking for.

@smodtactical see my post above.

@jbhiller not sure if my post above addresses any of the issues you were having, but Scott said no bypass caps for the shared power nodes was a big no-no.