The sunn Forum
Sunn Musical Equipment => Q & A => Topic started by: RichBriere on December 11, 2002, 02:57:14 pm
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Greetings All,
I'd like to take just a moment to thank all of you who have written to me over the past year. Your sentiments were much appreciated and meant a great deal to me.
To update you. I sold a lot of my SUNN gear to pay lawyers, etc., so my collection took quite a hit. I've also left Fender and now belong to the legions of 50 year old unemployed males roaming the hills of the Southern Tier in NY.
I continue to have heroes in my life, the Sundholm Brothers being two who loom large in that department.........and I hope to get back to contributing to this site as well as adding more to the SUNN Shack which is located on my personal site: www.richbriere.com
Some of you have Emailed me and found that my Eddress no longer works. There's a reason for that. Ya know all of the SPAM that you receive in your mailbox every morning?? Well, I don't get ANY!! The good thing about posting your Eddress on sites is that you become "accessible" to like-minded good folks. The bad thing is that you become accessible........to SPAM Spiders.
OK.......enough questions answered.
MY question for the day: It's obvious that we're all addicted to SUNN, for many good reasons........but what else do you use? What kind of bass, guitar, electric accordion, etc. What types of music do you play?
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
The SUNN Shack
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Rich...I have enjoyed and used your site....a belated thanks foryour effort. As for your questions I am not a professional musician only a hobbyist and I also am an intermediate-skilled tube amp geek who likes to put old stuff back together and sort of revive it....I tell my wife its a lot cheaper than old cars
I got into Sunn stuff trying to get gear for my kids at a reasonable prices. First purchase was a Concert Bass for my son (14 now but 8 at the time). He plays a Fendar J-bass through that and switches cabinets between an old Acoustic 2X15 cab in the garage with reconed Sunn Transducers, or the small 1X10 bass cab project by L Moskowitz inside the house ( and yes it really does get down to 43HZ) or a 1X15 home made cab that he uses at high school jazz band. He also now has a Kevin O'Connor bass homebrew preamp (1 - 12AX7) on top of a Concert Slave and when mom's out of the house we get to plug in a 1200S with 4-6550s and twin rectifiers (screw the neighbors!). He also has an Oliver bass head (an Ampeg clone that's on my bench for rebuilding - it has 2 7027As) He'salso got a bunch of pedals, the favorite being EH's Bass Balls
My daughter plays violin (celtic) and when she gets out her electric fiddle shes using an old Sunn Studio PA that has been recapped and has a new PT (yeah its solid state, but ..) she runs that into some old Peavy monitors. The fun part is when she puts her fiddle through an ART ECC effects box. she took that rig to burning man and ripped the joint.
Is this confessional what you are looking for? Basically I like Sunn stuff 'cause it sounds good, is vintage, but is still afordable and not in the exalted collector's gun sites destined to sit on a shelf.
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B.....a fine post indeed!! I give it a 9.5.......I can dance to it and it's got a great beat. Sounds like a well adjusted family as well. :lol:
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
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I'm playing:
Rickenbacker 4003 (and sometimes a Hamer USA-made bass -- unknown model) through a Model T/215B in my cover tune band.
For guitar, I play mostly a Yamaha Studio Lord set-neck Les Paul copy (a favorite guitar -- here's a pic of me playing it: http://www.geoffbullard.com/images/011031_geoff.jpg ) or a Gibson Explorer. I use my Sonaro and a Rat or original Sansamp pedal through a Coliseum 412 or a retrofitted Model 2. I wish my finances allowed more Sunn purchases. I see 'em on ebay all the time but I just can't afford to give them a good home.
Between my brother and I, we have several guitars and amps here and there. He played through high school with a Beta Bass combo and an old Fender Mustang with the competition stripe! His PA included a set of Sunn column PA speakers (can't remember the model right now.)
Geoff
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Hi Rich,
I was very pleasantly surprized to see you posting again. I too can relate to the over 50 looking for work status. 8) The spam, lets see, since 11/1/02 I've received 800 in my blocked senders file and thats after going through my isp spam filter. "Don't start me talking, I'll tell you everything I know" James Cotton Band.
Until a few years back my main amp was an Acoustic 360. Bought new in 71. Then a good friend told me about a Sunn 2000S that used to be a studio amp in Stockton Ca. I tried it out at an outside jam with my Carvin 2-10 and an old Fender Sidekick 15 cabinet with a Carvin Speaker. BTW that cabinet design looks very very similiar to a 70s sunn cabinet. I was completely impressed with this amp. It was THE sound/tone that I had been searching for. I sold the Acoustic soon after purchase. I play a Carvin LB75, Cort Headless with barts, Yamaha BB200 w/SD SPB2, and a 68 Gibson EB0 that has been highly modified. You can see pictures at my unfinished homepage. http://www.geocities.com/rumblethump/ Note to self, got to finish that BIO. I also have an SWR Workingman 300 that I use for pratice, backup and extended tube life for the Sunn. Its never been needed for backup but the Sunn is 33 years old :wink:
Anyways, thank you for the great info posted at YOUR site. It filled in most of the many questions I had about Sunn after I got this amp. Aguilar Smaguilar, I know a spectacular tube amp when I hear one.
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hey rich,
our band is really just getting into the sunn stuff........we picked up an old 1200s that our bassist is using with an ampeg 8x10 cabinet, he has a 70's SVT too but it is apart and being reconditioned. he plays only fender basses...jazz or precision. We have retubed the 1200s and have de-comissioned the reverb for the time being...will also be converting the mid boost switch to a bass boost switch for the time being. I was gonna use the amp for guitar but haven't been able to get him away from it to do so!!!
the latest find is a 350L head and (per the ad) 3x12 cabinet that we're supposed to pick up very soon. Hopefully i'll get to use that one! my other gear consists of a sovtek tube midget head and a 70's marshall 2x12 cabinet...sometimes a 60's marshall cabinet that has old celestions...it used to be an 8x10 marshall cabinet but somebody cut it down (don't blame me). I use a clean boost/od pedal, looper a-b, boss tu-2,fuzz factory,70's big muff,rat and an old EH deluxe memory man. all the pedals are true bypassed for guitars I use a 69 sg, tokai sg or sometimes a 67 reissue flying Vee or a tele I put together with parts.
oh yeah...about the music...it's a mix of indie/punk and straight up rock (all original)...we're a 4 piece with fem. vocals and guitar/bass/drums
we're loving the sunn stuff because it is accessible, affordable and it really sounds good...i'm thinking the 1200s is overkill in the wattage dept, but that's a post for another time......
any questions?
-bm
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Rumble!!!! Good to hear from you Sir! It's nice to know that you're still walking through the front door of the SUNN Shack on ocassion as well. :)
I'm always amazed at how many folks visit the site www.richbriere.com and hit the SUNN pages. I've been VERY fortunate to get the help of the Sundholm Brothers, Buck, Jack Shelton and others who were around when being a "Legend" actually meant somethng. :) You guys still out there? The music business needs you!!!
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
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good to see you posting again, hope youre doing better. to add to the funn i am using two sunns a 1200s and a coliseum p.a. with some minor mods. i ues both heads with two, 400 watt each, homemade cabs, one is a 4x10 the other is a single 18, in addition im planning on making a 6x15 soon, the bass in an old garnet jazz bass copy. for guitar i use one of the two heads, an old music man 4x12 cab with origional speakers and an electra les paul copy with a set neck, and am looking for one more 4x12. plenty loud, sounds rad. pat
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Rich,
Tom Loizeaux here. I'm glad to see you back in circulation. You've certainly had an impact on keeping Sunn's name in the music scene.
I bought my first Sunn head, a 200S, in 1969, I believe, because it was the amp that made my Fender Precision sound its best. The 1-15 Sunn cabinets I added really gave that bass a rich, deep, powerful sound. I still use them! I've moved "up" to Sunn vintage Model T heads and have put EVMs in those single 15 cabinets, but I still get that wonderful Sunn tone that I can't find anywhere else.
Thanks again for being so supportive of the Sunn legacy.
Tom
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Thanks for the kind words Tom. :D I know that you, too, have been out there doing your best to spread the word according to Sunn.
One of the things that I enjoy the most about Sunn users is the fact that we're all one big family. Each time we walk into a music store we're secretly hoping that some old, smelly piece of Sunn gear will have just come in on trade and we'll be able to pick it up for a song. Alas, they're getting more difficult to find.......but we all keep looking anyway.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about the Sunn line was how interchangable it was. They didn't waste a lot of time coming up with 7,000 different models that nobody needed or wanted. Much of the line was built on the same frame and only power changes and speaker changes were different. If you look at speaker cabinet dimensions, Sunn had efficiency down to a science.
I, truly, treasure the work that the early Sunn Team did and the sound that their early amps produced was (and still is) nothing short of awesome. More than that, however, I thank the Sundholm brothers every day for what they gave the Rock and Roll world.
I worked in a music store in the late 60's and I can vividly remember loading TONS of Sunn gear into the vehicles of proud, new, Sunn owners. My DREAM was to be able to afford a 200S with 2 cabinets. Zowie!!! Could life possibly get any better than that??? :P
Even today, my MTD basses sing like birds through the rig that I waited a couple of decades to be able to find.......and once my life gets back to "normal", my search will continue.......as will yours. :o
Happy Holidays to the "Lurkers" who haven't posted yet, as well as many thanks to those of you who have
Bass-ically Yours
Rich Briere
www.richbriere.com
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Hey,
I purchesed a 1970 Sunn solarus about a year ago.
The reason i bought it was those huge hunks of iron on each side of the amp head and those tubes AKA "6550s" that seemed huge at the time.
I was like woah i get one of these so i saved up $300 and bought a solarus amp head. best musical purchase I made. I have fixed the amp up alittle since i got it got NOS SUNN knobs (man that was harder than hell to find those) and cleaned the tolex which is in great shape, cleaned the corners and got the rust off and polished them.
I messed with the tubes and got new sylvania 6550s and GE 6an8.
I have to say there were times when I wanted to get rid of the amp but I must say the long restorations are part of the FUNN with old Sunn's.
I am glad i kept my amp and didn't sell it, Thanks to everyone on the sunn site i have been able to keep my Sunn alive and LOUD AS HELL.
Thanks for your help rich AND everyone On the forum.
Thanks Conrad and Norm these amps are great for bass so loud and punchy. :D
Oh before i leave what is the Bias range for a solarus like 26 Ma or what i am playing bass throught it so i need a clean sound.
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ohh kay ok im nto a regular but ill go anyways
i use a 1994 jackson pro with a floyd rose tremelo.
oh yea and a 1998 sunn model T
with a 4-12 carvin cab
i know i know its not the classiest set up but it does its job.
super dirty drone sludge..
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Super Dirty Drone Sludge?? :lol: Hey, it takes all kinds of music to make the world go 'round. And you're doing it through a Sunn amp, right? How much better could life possibly be, my friend?? By the way, welcome to the site. :wink:
Bass-ically Yours,
Rich Briere
www.richbriere.com
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yea sunn all the way
im looking to get an original
model t.
id like to run them together...see what happnens
hopefully not a fireball
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Just a friendly reminder. As of last count, this thread had 226 views but only 13 responses. If the OTHER 213 of you "lurkers" could post any little thing sometime this evening, it would make for a nice start to the NEW Year. :P
Bass-ically Yours,
Rich
www.richbriere.com
PS: Sample question: Your ULTIMATE SUNN dream acquisition........if you could find the Sunn of your dreams, what would it be??
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Hi Rich, Glad to see you back, and Happy New Year! Still have the twin 2000s rig (thanks to you) as well as an SVT. Still playing my '66 P bass. Also a '68 EB3, a '74 Ripper and a '80's Steinie. Oh yeah I have a Sorado rig that my pal Rob thinks he's gonna buy! I love the sound of those two 2000s beasts hooked together! Had the JBLs reconed. Regrilled heads and cabs, retubed, recapped re re re! Yeah baby! They look and sound brand new! We are still looking for a guitar player, then I'll unleash some smooth low frequencies on the unsuspecting. Bill K.
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I'll add my $0.02 here....
I bought my one and only Sunn amp, a 1973 Concert Bass, in the early 80's. I used a custom 1x15 cabinet loaded with a JBL D140F. My father and I built the cabinet which was loosly based on a Music Man design. It is a ported design with the port running the length of the cab at the bottom. It worked very nice! I played a mid-70's P-Base through this rig.
I was in a country rock band at the time (Skinard, Allman Bros., Molly Hatchet, etc). We played parties, beer tents and dances for about 3 years. Having found this group makes me want to do some jammin! Its been a long time... too long.
I posted a thread not too long ago about my adventures in resurrecting the head. I plugged it in recently only to find it had serious noise problems. Cutting to the chase, I used advise from this group and refurbished the head. Now it sounds great!
I am very interested in finding a Sunn tube head for Bass. From what I have read it seems almost any Sunn head will do, depending on power needs. I am surprised to see nothing compiled in one place that discusses the recommended uses for each type of head and their pros, cons, tone, etc. Some information is available across the web, but not in one convenient place and it's limited! Maybe I can start a new project with everyone's help!
That's my story.
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Babs......good luck on your project......and I'm sure that you'll find what you're looking for.
I'll be adding some more stuff to the "Sunn Shack" in the near future as I'm now finding that I have a "bit more free time". :)
Feel free to stop by anytime and see if there's anything that you can use.
PS: I'd recommend a Sunn 200S with your cab. It should sing like a bird.
Bass-ically Yours,
Rich Briere
www.richbriere.com
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Bill K........good to hear from you, my friend. Hey, do me a favor?? Before you crank up those 2000S stacks, please make sure that you call ahead to the Earthquake Information Center. We wouldn't want them thinking that there was a fault of some kind opening up in your state. Glad that you're enjoying them sir! :lol:
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
www.richbriere.com
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Hi Rich & company,
I'm a bass player and tube amp wannabe. I use a '77 PBass with a Fralin jazz pickup in the bridge with the orginal fender p pickups and a blend pot. I also use a stock '73 Ric, 4001 mapleglow. My gig rig is a Sunn 1500S (68) with Tung Sol 6550's into an EV B410 cab, and a '74 Sunn Model T with Svetlana KT88's (priced matched quads of Tung Sols lately?) into a single 15 TL cab EV loaded. I use a Sansamp bass DI for one feed into the board and I mic the 410 with a Shure beta 57. I use an early Sunn 200S into a single 12 TL cab at home... what else.... oh, dbx compressors and EV eliminator floor monitor. Killer stuff indeed. :D
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i started like everybody with crap that had no brand name. in 78 i bought a hagstrom swede bass, (big, heavy les paul looking) followed in 79 by a sunn beta bass combo with an offset 215 cab. i joined the air force in 85 and sold the amp to a freind(he still hass and uses it for local gigs on a regular basis), i should'a kept it though. after a few years of not playing, i got an old concert bass head and a 215b cab. sorry to say the head had problems and after a few repairs finally fried beyound repair. i am currently using a 140watt hartke head with the 215b. i had the chance to pick up a decent beta head for 150.00, unfortunately not the 150.00. oh well, i WILL find another. i bought my first sunn because i was, and still am a big chris squire (yes) fan. i've played everything from country to hard rock to classic rock to gospel and always sounded good. let the SUNN always shine in your house.
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Hey Rich! And hello to everyone else. Just joined a few days ago, and already got some help from the resident pros. In a nutshell, I'm just down the road in the Scranton PA area. Own the aforementioned '74 Concert, along with my bought-new '78 Concert rig. Still love em! Ampwise, I also have a '66 Ampeg B-15N, '67 Kustom 200B with two JBL D-140s in Aqua Sparkle, '71 Acoustic 150b, '73 Acoustic 140, '68 Vox Kensington, '00 Vox T-25, '94 Peavey T-Max, '98 Genz Benz 210T-CC. Basses: '60 Precision, '74 Precision, '82 Vint. '57P, '91 Vint. '51P, '83 Vint. '62 Jazz, '00 Hofner 500/1V62, '94 Hofner Cavern, '91 Rick 4001 Chris Squire, '98 Danelectro Longhorn 58, Upright of unknown origin, '73 Ovation Balladeer guitar.
I play every weekend in a classic rock cover band, and get together with a separate bunch to record originals. We get occasional airplay down in NEPA. By day I'm an electrician/project coordinator for one of the local hospitals. Still listen to "The Whale" at times, and shop and dine (Olive Garden!) in Vestal frequently. Spent LOTS of time playing in the Southern Tier clubs in the 70s-80s. Popeye's comes to mind, plus many others. Worked with Music Star Agency in Binghamton for quite awhile too. Tom's an old friend. I think I played in every town off I-81 and I-90 during those days! This is a cool place ya got! I hope everyone can help me get my sick '74 Concert working again. I really miss it!
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Well Fran....you're just down the road a piece....we're neighbors! Welcome, and thanks for your post. You'll probably hear from a few other guys who are from the great State of PA. .......... there are some good ones.
Anyone here from Massachusetts, by chance?
I agree, we owe a lot to our Moderator/Founder for keeping such a nifty place for us to hang out. :)
Sounds like you've got some pretty nifty gear...............and also sounds like you enjoy it.........life is good! :)
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
www.richbriere.com
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OK Rich, I’ll play.
Back in 1967, when I was in high school, I bought a SUNN because I didn’t want a Fender. It was a beautiful Solarus, the faux piggy back, all-in-one amp. The beast sounded amazing with my Gibson Trini Lopez Standard. Possibly because it has less of a midrange dip, chords simply sounded orchestral. At the end of high school, I loaned the amp to a friend to keep for the summer. Somehow, it never came back.
Last year, I got a lead on a SUNN Sceptre through this forum and bought the beast. After a long series of adventures, I finally got all of the pieces to Venezuela. Since then I have been cleaning and polishing it, playing with the tube set, and simply enjoying the rather unique sound. It is a pain to lug to gigs and it is almost embarrassing to show up with a 4x12 today, but nobody ever complains about the sound and I don’t have to lift weights at the gym!
My daughter went to Cornell, so for a few years, I used to drive right past your shack! Stay warm!
Foto of Sunn with security system: http://www.pbase.com/image/6106645
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Holy Mackeral Fred........that baby is gorgeous!! You've, obviously, spent a few hours cleaning that gem!
How much of it has been replaced? The grill cloth looks like you could eat off of it...........although I'd pass on trying to do that if the dog happened to be in the same room.
Welcome to the Playhouse.........and thanks for participating. :D
Cornell is a wonderful place..........the Lady of my Life is a Rocket Scientist over there.
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
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Hey Mastercaster..........Sounds like you're enjoying the world of Sunn as well. It's great having you guys responding to my plea for social-ism.
Fred........great site.......I really enjoyed it.......and my best to Denise please. :^>)
Question to all: Do Sunn owners tend to have a thing for Rickenbackers too? I'm noticing that the Ric name appears quite a bit here.
Bass-ically Yours,
RB
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Rich,
The saga of the cleaning of the Sceptre is in the forum in the post "Comin' Clean."
The task was made easier by the fact that the previous owner went to great lengths to take care of the beast. (Thank you!)
All is original except for the rubber feet on the speaker cab, one was broken so I replaced them all.
Gotta get one of those paint pens as I took a little too much paint off of one of the knobs.
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Well, okay Rich, since you asked: I run a Fender Pbass with an Acoustic 360, both bought new in 1970. Nowadays, though, as with many of you, the big old beast just is too much to cart around, as well as being overkill for most jobs. ( I don't play in cavernous places anymore!) I am in the process of fixing up a "gimme" Peavey TNT130 for practices and small venues, but can already tell that it has its limitations, and will need augumentation from time to time. Am negotiating a purchase of two JBL E140's, which I intend to power with a Crown DC300A, and would like to build twin cabs on the 1x15 Sunn 200S design. I have posted a request for anyone that can supply diagrams for these just this evening, and am hoping someone out there can help me out! Remember, you will be helping to remove an Acoustic from use, and adding (sort of) a Sunn design in it's place!
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WOW!!! What a find. I have been away from playing for 20yrs and have decided to restore my old clone. This site is the answer to my problem. Amp and cabinet are homemade clones from '67 or'68 100s or 200s. made by a member of a U of O campus party band. Intended use was for a piano amp. I use it as a guitar amp untill it "smoked". It blows 2 amp slow blow fuses when standby switch is flipped. Power tube sockets and rectifier sockets are burnt, but the rectifer tube still glows orange on standby.I don't dare flip the standby switch. All power tubes, pre-amp and splitter(7199) tubes are not powered (should they be ?). I will be looking for a local ampman to if this is salvageable. power tubes are el34 x 2, pre-amptube is a 12ax7a x 1, rectifier tube is a 5ar4 x 1, and a 7199 x 1 (splitter or tone tube?). Tube choices are confusing. What's best for good,clean,high power? I have replaced the old RadioShack 15" with an early Fender ps15 8 ohm speaker(200 watts rated). My guitar is a '67 Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennesean in excellent condition. I would apreciate any ideas, tips, thoughts and helpful suggestions. Realy what to get this old girl to scream again. when I played it outside, i would wake sleeping children on the otherside of the valley and their parents would hunt me down. Great funnnnnn!!!! Hope to see what ya'all think.
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Hello:
Well, I haven't been on this site in a lonnnnnnngggggg time. I sold most of my Sunn PA gear to a local club who tortured it for a year. They brought it back and I fixed everything. They just tortured it all over again. No respect. If a speaker blows they just crank up the remaining ones until they blow. It breaks my heart. The PA cabs were Sunn prototypes of my own design that I built myself. They ran guitar cords for speaker wire and blew the SGA 310 monitor amps. Only the SA21's keep going cuz' they haven't figured out how to wreck em yet.
As for instrument amps I have a Scepter, Stagemaster, (2) 60 watt Stingers and a SB200. I play a 62 Gibson Melody Maker, 79 Les Paul custom and a Takamine acoustic. My main amps are Supro's running in stereo, wicked gnarley yet not over powering for club gigs.
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Hey Don, good to see you posting again!
I've got a 1970 Sonic 1 that was sick when I got it. I modified it to 200S specs and replaced every component and tube in it. Then I upped the cap values in the first two filter cap stages to 110 uf and 50uf respectively and changed to a Copper Cap rectifier. I also upped the cathode bypass cap on the first stage to 300uf. Now it REALLY sounds nice and gives good clean power for bass. In the process of my mods, I added a true ground buss grounding scheme with a ground lift switch and moved all the grounds to it. I also elevated the filaments with about 50v DC and those mods made the hum level go down quite a bit. It has JJ KT88's in it now.
I've also got a stock '68 2000S that hasn't been touched. I'd like to get some JBL equipped 2x15 cabinets made but am not there yet. I use a Rickenbacker 4001 bass through the Sunn's and an SVT cab, or a 1x15 cab with a JBL E140 in it. Sounds great!
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I found a home! After not playing bass professionally for 25 years, I decided to pickup the almighty 4 stringer again. Back in the day I used a sunn 612s and a Beta 105 1 15 cabs with my Rick 4001, 78 Pbass and 76 t-Bird thru a Sunn Concert Head. They are all gone now accept my Ric (it was my first bass and I saved six months working part time in high school to by it new). So when I decide to come back 25 years later I thought the new Edens, SWRs, etc. are cool and really light compare to the stuff I had to haul back in the day but all the bells and whistles scared me.
This last November I had a booth at a local musicians trade fair and a guy a few booths down had a 68 Sunn Sordano bass head with a Acoustic 2 15 Bottom both were mint. Truthfully I didn't know squat about Sunn tube heads but he said it was 50 watts, he bought it new in 1968, and he had NOS SUNN KT88s put in recently by a amp tech who bought out all the old Sunn parts when it went to fender. I remember my old Concert from in the day so I gave it a shot. Plugged in a p bass, powered up the head plugged into the Acoustic Cabinet and turned up the vol. knob on the p- bass.
IT WAS HEAVEN!!!!! I FILLED THAT ARMORY WITH SO MUCH LOW FREQUENCY ALL THE GUITAR SHREAD MASTERS TRYING OUT THEIR 50-100 PEAVEYS AND WHAT NOT HAD TO STOP PLAYING. 50 WATTS NEVER SOUNDED SO CLEAN, LOUD AND WARM AT THE SAME TIME. IT WAS THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I WAS PLAYING A BASS TUBE AMP THAT DIDN'T DISTORT AT ALL!!!
I didn't bicker on the price and paid him cash right there. All I will say is that it cost me less that a used silverface bassman head.
So since then, in the last 60 days, I also bought a Spectrum I head, a 1200s, and a 2000s. I know I really should find the matching cabinets for these heads but I'm not as young as I used to be to haul those heavy things around. I have also found, for what ever reason, Carven stuff sounds really good with these Sunn heads but I am open for recommendations to try.
Oh Ya, basses, well I built a P and J bass, bought another T-bird, my old Ric. and built a 24 fret explore bass. Kind of a tribute to my hero John Entwistle (God bless his soul :( )
Great site here as well as the SUNN shack. A wealth of info. I've used it often already.
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I recently picked up my first Sunn amp off of eBay - Coliseum 300
It came from Arizona so I figured it would be a little scratchy. I was right, it was very dirty so I have cleaned it as much as possible and the knobs don't scratch like they did when I first powered it up. I still get speaker crackle at times so I am going to take it into the shop for a checkup and cap replacement with the scematics offered on this site and the SUNN shack to help them out.
I took it to band practice just to show them as I hadn't really put it through its paces yet and playing at half volume against a modded Peavy 5150 was just a joy. The band really liked the sound over my Hartke 5000. It made my knob-tweaker guitarist drool until I let him toy with it. 8)
The real test is tonight with both 5150 half stacks going in my heavy metal band. So wish the Sunn luck :)
My gear right now is:
2003 Fender Aerodyne
?? Ibanez EDB400
Sunn Coliseum
Hartke 5000
Sabine rack tuner
Furman power conditioner
BOSS ODB-3 Bass Overdrive <--really just a fuzz pedal
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Rich -- Just stumbled across this site, and yours, and your query about gear. Very cool to come across Sunn worshipers out there!
It's funny -- and it just occurred to me -- but I've been using Sunn products since the early 70's (after continually blowing my Bassman 50 as a kid. Slight issue with not understanding "impedance") and always seem to have something Sunn in whatever configuration I'm playing through. I'm currently powering everything with a little SWR 2004 head (I'm getting old, and 75 lbs. of "rack" are getting harder and harder to justify; that doesn't keep me from heavy cabinets, however!) in lieu of my Crown-powered rack. My Sunn Concert Bass head from years gone by was, I verily believe, HOCKED by one of my brothers who figured I didn't NEED four amplifiers (and figured HE didn't need to WORK), but I still have -- and use in my setup -- a Coliseum folded horn/18" Cerwin Vega cab and a Sunn 205 (2-15's, ported) along with an SWR 4-10 cab, all in a series-parallel config. The 205 has had to survive one re-coning due to Johnny Rod of WASP who decided to crank it one night while sitting in (the thing only handles 100 watts) but, other than that, it's been a real trouper. Sometimes I forego the 18 and use a single JBL 12" (for "impedance" sake!) at smaller venues where I'm getting plently of low end off the room.
Hope you're still out there reading these things!
Correspondance: cjbonano1@yahoo.com
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:D Things still going well for you guys and gals? Life here is, finally, good. MANY thanks to all of you who have been staying in touch and stopping by the Sunn Shack. We seem to be finding NEW users for SUNN gear all the time and I keep hoping that someone who cares will buy the name back and start cranking out world-class amplifiers again.
Just wanted to check in and let everyone know that I'm up and running again.
Bass-ically Yours,
RB