@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)
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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@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 |
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