So I bought the Willsenton R-800i
After I bought the Klipsch Cornwall IVs recently it became apparent quite quickly that to make it really shine it needs a tube amp to drive it. (For me at least.) After doing some (=endless) research, considering the options (budget, shops nearby carrying models I´m interested in, etc.) and also asking around on this very forum I decided to go for the Willsenton R-800i. None of my friends here shares my excitement for audio stuff or even has a comparable system, so what´s now in my living room is the one tube amp I know. And I´m delighted. Together with the speakers it gives the music the presence and glow that I so desired.
Of course I can tell that there´s more potential in this amp and I already exchanged some of the stock tubes. There are more on the way and I can´t wait to test them. For now my financial means are a bit limited so I´m not ordering Western Electric and Takatsuki 300Bs just for the sake of comparing them. In fact I´m waiting with those a bit and go for the others first.
Searching online I find a lot of information on English language forums. Somehow tube rolling is not discussed as much on the German forums I checked though – and out of curiosity (and because they were pretty cheap) I went for both West- and East-German ECC83s and a fairly random mix of other tubes from the US and the Soviet Union. I´m waiting for them to arrive and not being able to read about some of them it raises my curiosity how they will sound. Maybe crappy, maybe not so bad, maybe even very good. I´ll see. Tube rolling will take some time and I don´t mind. The amp is there to stay for quite a while.
There´s an exhaustive thread on the Willsenton amps and fitting tubes here but since I found people´s comments on this forum so helpful I´m looking forward to hear from you. I´m open for tube recommendations and would like to hear anyone´s experience with the Willsenton R-800i. Or maybe someone has questions?
As for the tubes:
805 – stock replaced for Cossor
300B – stock
6SN7 – stock replaced for Sylvania GTBs, waiting for Fonon NOS (Soviet, 1979, a bargain for 10€)
12AX7 – stock replaced with current Mullard model, waiting for West German ones from AEG and Telefunken, East German ones from RSD and Funkwerk Erfurt (both used) and also Sylvania JAN 5751 NOS (a military model)
5U4G – stock, waiting for RCA NOS black plate and Svetlana NOS „Coke Bottle“
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@atlvalet Thank you! I need help with mine and Willsenton is not responsive or the distributor. Terrible. No response. No schematic. Just awful. I should've bought the Line Magnetic 805 amp. At any rate, I'm going to try to contact Scott. Where is he? Can you post info here publicly on him? I'd pay him to fix mine and upgrade it! Thank you!
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Sorry about your amp. I kind of swore off Chinese tube amps after a bad experience with another brand which started blowing out NOS 5U4GB tubes. I opened it up and the caps were no name junk, the soldering was crude and several caps had way oversized values. It was pretty messy. I ended up replacing a bunch of stuff under the "hood" and it sounded better and was much more reliable, but I sold it eventually and moved on. Since then I've found if you're willing to buy used you can find stuff in really good condition, of much higher quality, for not much more than some of the Chinese amps. I moved on and bought a used Quicksilver tube amp, for not a ton more, that's been rock solid in terms of reliability and sounds a ton better paired with my Forte III (Updated to IV) speakers. Good luck with yours! Hope you can get it worked out!
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