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Willsenton R300


mopardave

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20 minutes ago, henry4841 said:

I recently bought a pair from this guy on Ebay and was well satisfied. He has another pair at a decent price. No affiliation so buy at your own risk. Positive ratings and reviews though. 

 

 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/134480808027?hash=item1f4fae485b:g:5A8AAOSwY2pkCNms

I believe that current production EHX and Genalex Gold Lion are both manufactured at the same Reflektor factory in Saratov, Russia.

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1 hour ago, kevinmi said:

I finally got my Gold Lions for my Cary's. They sound better than the EH's right out of the box. I'll be breaking them in over the next few weeks. Congrats on the Willsenton, I've read some good reviews on it.

Thanks, the amp is being delivered with the original tubes as well as the GL 300b's .    Cant wait to try it out.

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On 4/12/2023 at 1:18 PM, Invidiosulus said:

I bet it’s going to sound fantastic.

It sounds better than my China EL 34(Audcom) and i really like how the Audcom sounds with JJ KT77's in it.   The Willsenton out of the box had a blown rectifier tube(RCA 5U4GB), so I swapped those out for a pair of Sylvania 5U4GB and fired up the amp for the first listen with the original Willsenton 300b's and I was pleasnatly surprised with the bigger more detailed sound stage.   I next switched out the Sylvania's for the Jan 5U4GB which is a Phillips ECG and not much if any difference.  Next switched out the Willsenton 300b for the Gold Lion 300b and it was a step up in clearity and a bit more open, but not a huge different from the Wellsenton 300b.  For the Willsenton  pre amp tube, I switched it out for a pair of china 6n8p and i thought it brightened thing up a bit.  Will do some more rolling back and forth today and maybe get a better idea of what sounds best to me.   Would like the try some of the coke bottle retifiers tubes, but not sure what i can use in this amp.  Any opinions on what rectifiers sound best?

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I only have to deal with two tubes right now, as I only have a tube linestage. One rectifier and one 6dj8/6922 for the audio.

 

I can't remember what rectifiers work the best and that may depend on the PS circuit in your amp. Look at a tube substitution site to tell you what you can use and then see what others think change the sound for good or ill.

 

I need to get my Dynaco ST-70  back together...

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3 minutes ago, Marvel said:

I only have to deal with two tubes right now, as I only have a tube linestage. One rectifier and one 6dj8/6922 for the audio.

 

I can't remember what rectifiers work the best and that may depend on the PS circuit in your amp. Look at a tube substitution site to tell you what you can use and then see what others think change the sound for good or ill.

 

I need to get my Dynaco ST-70  back together...

Just found some options on the chinhifi site.  Looks like my takes 3 pre amp tubes and an option would be  1/ Tung Sol 6sl7gt and 2/ psvane cv181 Tii.  Rec tubes 274B. 

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On 4/16/2023 at 9:16 AM, mopardave said:

It sounds better than my China EL 34(Audcom) and i really like how the Audcom sounds with JJ KT77's in it.   The Willsenton out of the box had a blown rectifier tube(RCA 5U4GB),

 ....test the  Willsenton   warranty 

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2 hours ago, OO1 said:

 ....test the  Willsenton   warranty 

i dont care about warrantys.  i know two different repair shops that can not only fix any issues, but have the ability to improve the design.  i rarely worry about a warranty on anything. if it breaks, i throw it away and buy something else.  pretty simple

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  • 1 month later...

 

I managed to get my hands on a 4-month-old R300 tonight. I've connected it to my Cornwall 4 speakers, and I'm currently listening to it. After two hours of listening, my initial impression is that it sounds good, but not exceptional.. no WOW feeling so far. The soundstage is well-defined, and the sound feels slightly more expansive compared to my Decware Zen Triode. However, I do notice some sharper edges in the vocals. The Decware Zen Triode, in my opinion, is slightly more musical and creates a more holographic image that I find very appealing. It's worth mentioning that the R300 still has its original set of tubes.

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1 hour ago, Flevoman said:

 

 
 

I managed to get my hands on a 4-month-old R300 tonight. I've connected it to my Cornwall 4 speakers, and I'm currently listening to it. After two hours of listening, my initial impression is that it sounds good, but not exceptional

 could be the quality of the tubes is not up to par 

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This was truly my very first impression when listening to the R300. To be honest, it sounded better than I initially expected. It sounds really good for the price, actually. Despite reading all the positive reviews, I didn't have such high expectations, to be honest. But since I really wanted to try a SET 300B amplifier, this seemed like a great option. Affordable and with many glowing reviews.

 

I'll continue listening for now. I know from experience that opinions can change (especially mine 🙃). My first impression yesterday was just a snapshot. Maybe I'll try different tubes or modifications to the amplifier itself. I also want to compare it with my Melody MDA2 and see how it stacks up. But for now, as a first impression, it sounds good... but the Decware Zen Triode wins for me.

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I've recently found some good deals on 300B tubes on the auction site, eg; Shuguang 300B-T for $170 and a pair of Electro Harmonix gold pins for $115, both sets are matched pairs.  however the Western Electric tubes remain way outta my league.

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I thought it was mentioned in this review (not sure), but the reviewer was of the opinion that changing the 300B tubes didn't provide much improvement in terms of sound. If I remember correctly, he believed that more improvement could be achieved by changing the other tubes.

 

 

Since the 300B tubes are quite expensive, I'm hesitant to replace them with better/more expensive tubes, knowing that it probably won't make much of a difference. If anyone has experience with replacing the tubes in this amplifier, I would love to hear about it.


 

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Interesting being having an EL84 amp, which is very good sounding, I was not that impressed. Great sounding, do not get me wrong, it is a SET tube amp but I have many tube amplifiers I like better. Perhaps Deckert puts some magic in his builds but with so few parts I do not see it. Tube circuits were perfected almost 100 years ago. Not much has changed since. 

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