Cart before the horse. Always listen to original first.
Unfortunately without any reference point it will be hard for me to describe the sound of the amp accurately.
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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The First Watt F7 should very likely be a much better match for your horn speakers compared to the Pass Lab 250.5. Intuitively the 250.5 does not seem a good match for a horn speaker. I'm curious as to how you find the F7 compared to a high quality tube amplifier driving your horns. I'm looking forward to your listening impressions. Charles |
@chmaiwald You should be able to play all genres of music with a good setup, no inherent reason your amp/speaker combo can't do it, problem elsewhere.
I have modded Klipschorns and SET amps, it plays extremely nice with the exact cuts and albums you mentioned, EDM, electronic or really any genre. Has human warmth, along with momentum, timing, impact enough to propel and invite total involvement. My listening sessions can go from traditional vocal, lets say Nat King Cole to rock to EDM to expeimental to hip hop to jazz to classical, all very involving.
First thing is getting timbre and tonal balance correct, getting proper match with amp/speaker combo should take care of momentum/impact side of equation.
Over time you should play with better 300b tubes, those and 805 should have more impact on sound quality than signal tubes. |
- 135 posts total