The sunn Forum
Sunn Musical Equipment => Q & A => Topic started by: Guest on June 09, 2005, 02:44:45 pm
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I recently purchased a Sunn Bass Cabinet with 15" inch speakers. It has a handle on it's side and a silvery screen, and looks fairly old. It cost me 200 dollars, used. Can anyone tell me anything about this cabinet? I may take it back, it doesn't sound that sweet but it was really cheap. I'm using it with a 350 watt @ 4 ohms, 200 watt at 8 ohms ampeg head.
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A few questions.
Can you pull off the grill? If so, how is it ported? A single rectangular port across the middle, two circular ports, or a port up the side of the cabinet, causing the drivers to be offset from the centerline?
Is there a nameplate on the back, or just a jack?
Where is the cabinet located?
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The speakers are covered with a screen that is not removable.
there is just a jack on the back, no nameplate.
I don't understand what you mean with "where is the cabinet located?"
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I don't understand what you mean with "where is the cabinet located?"
California, Arkansas, Bumphuk Egypt...
The fixed grill suggests a late sixties cabinet. What are the dimensions? Can you tell if it has one horizontal port or two circular ones? You should be able to remove the back, if necessary, to find out.
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I bought it at a guitar center in Toledo, OH, though I believe that they move their inventory around their locations.
It is about 40 inches tall, 23.5 inches wide, and 14.5 inches deep.
What is a port?
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Enclosures come in different types. Most common are sealed and ported. Sealed are exactly what you'd expect, sealed. Just a box with one or more drivers in it. Ported boxes have some sort of reflex port which extends the bass. Most are circular cutouts with tubes in them, but some are rectangular. Sunn made both kinds. For what it's worth, most guitar cabinets are sealed or have open backs, while the majority of bass cabinets are ported. There are always exceptions.
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Don't be so sure it's a Bass cabinet. Most people can't tell the difference between D-130's and D-140's from the front. D-130's have a smooth cone with a narrow surround, D-140's have a ribbed cone with an accordian surround. To be sure you might have to remove the back. Also make note of the impedance marked on the back of each speaker. In some years Sunn used different impedances or wired speakers in series instead of parallel. It could be a 4 or 8 ohm cabinet.
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I opened the thing up, it has two JBL speakers and some angled boards in it. The speakers have small circular cutouts in the back of them that are covered by screens. I'll leave the cabinet open to answer any further questions that might lead to the identification of the thing.
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The angled boards behind the speakers actually LOAD the back of the speaker in such a way that it makes the cabinet louder than it would be otherwise. In the middle of the cabinet, in between those angled boards, is there a rectangular opening that extends the whole width of the cabinet and also extends to the grillecloth? Or is there a round port somewhere in the cabinet that looks like a cardboard tube like you roll wrapping paper on, but much bigger around and much shorter than those? Also, on the back of the JBL speakers, do they say what model they are?
I'm guessing that your cabinet is a late 60's model like what would have come with a 200S head.
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There is a rectangular opening, and not a tube thing. The speakers are JBL model D140F, 8Ohms.
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Yes, sounds like the 200S cabinet. I presume the rectangular opening is horizontal, across the width of the cabinet, rather than vertical, along the long dimension, the height. If so, then this is surely the200S cabinet.
Want to sell it?
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how much is it worth?
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Let's say you got a steal. The JBL drivers themselves are worth more than you paid for the cabinet. I paid $200 for a pair of D140s and thought I was getting a good deal when I thought one was blown. Turned out it wasn't, and I was very happy about that!
The cabinet is more iffy. There are some who will pay big bucks for one of these. Other times they go for ridiculously low prices, as when you bought it for $200. I prefer to buy things for ridiculously low prices, especially when shipping is a big factor, as it would be with this cabinet. If you are interested in selling it, email me, and we can try to work out a deal.
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Do you know what wattage the cabinet is supposed to take?
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I'm not sure. I've never been able to find any specs on the JBL D140 drivers. I'm pretty sure they were rated at either 75 or 150 watts each, so the cabinet could reasonably be expected to handle 150 or 300 watts. That makes sense, because a similar cabinet was used with the 2000S, which put out 120 watts RMS.
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That cabinet is the 200S cabinet and they sound really nice with a Sunn amp. They sound good with other amps too, and can really put out the volume, but you won't notice the volume until you are at least 15 feet away because of the type of cabinet it is. As long as those JBL D140 speakers are working ok, then it should sound very nice! I believe the D140 was rated at 150 watts, but Ted Weber says they are more like a 100 watt speaker if I recall correctly. The Sunn 200S that your cabinet would have come with was a 60 watt bass amp, so if they were rated at 100 watts each, that would be plenty.
You got a steal on that thing at that price. It would cost you more than that to build a cabinet, and the JBL speakers sell for lots of money on ebay. Take a look at watch some auctions and you'll see. I'd be interested in your cabinet myself if the price was right and it didn't have to ship too far. I like the sounds those can make, especially when coupled with a Sunn head.
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Are you near Toledo? I'm pretty close, and I'll buy it if you want to sell it. Give me an idea of what you want for it, and we can negotiate based on condition when I get there. Or send me some jpegs and I'll lock on a price via email.
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Ed, do you know someone named Will Midge?
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So is the aforementioned Ampeg amp too powerful for the speaker cabinet?
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Nope, don't know a Will Midge. I guess you're keeping the cab. I doubt you would hurt the D140's with that solid state Ampeg. If they are 8ohm speakers, you have a 4ohm cab, and if you dimed the Ampeg I guess you would cook them eventually, but from harsh & nasty transistorized distortion, not from brute force. If you need that kind of sound pressure level, you need more rig anyway! Get a healthy tube amp, you'll be amazed at the volume & richness of sound you get out of that old cab.
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The cabinet could be wired as a 16 ohm cabinet too, in which case, putting a 4 ohm load on it wouldn't be a good idea.
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The cabinet could be wired as a 16 ohm cabinet too, in which case, putting a 4 ohm load on it wouldn't be a good idea.
Hmmmm...I hadn't though of that. How would you go about putting a load on a speaker cabinet? Why wouldn't running this cabinet at 16 ohms be a good idea? Under what conditions would someone wire a 2X15 bass guitar cab @ 16ohms? Could it damage something, if so what? The angled boards behind the speakers actually LOAD the back of the speaker in such a way that it makes the cabinet louder than it would be otherwise.
Man, I'm confused, how does this work? Do you have a lot of experience with speaker cabinets? I always like to learn something new, and your expert opinions are certainly new to me!
Hey "Guest", hook up your Ampeg and wail away, you should be fine! Get a tube amp as soon as possible. D140's and tubes are a great match.
PS, A good 4X10 is probably the best match for your solid state Ampeg, and it just so happens I have a few of them lying around...
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I'm not entirely sure what Soundmasterg meant, but, if the bass cabinet is wired for 16 ohms, adding a second cabinet at 4 ohms would take pretty much all the power from it. If it is 16 ohms, and the head running it is solid state, then there won't be much power available. Let's say the amp is rated at 150 watts at 4 ohms. That will give you about 80 watts at 8 ohms, and 40, 45, maybe 50 at 16 ohms. It would probably be better to wire it for 4 ohms, and get the full power out into the cabinet.
You ask, "Under what conditions would someone wire a 2X15 bass guitar cab @ 16ohms? Could it damage something, if so what?" You'd want to wire it for 16 ohms if you planned on using several of them. One head could run four 16 ohm cabinets, and only see a 4 ohm load. Nothing would be damaged. Solid state amps are voltage sources, and tend to be damaged only when they are asked for more current than they can provide, as when the load impedance is too low. Tube amps are different, and should have the impedance more closely matched.
Finally (for now!), the port in a cabinet sets up an acoustic resonant circuit called a Helmholtz resonator, which increases the output within its resonating band. It generally adds half an octave to an octave on the bottom end, at the expense of a much steeper rolloff below the cutoff frequency. If you want to learn more, I suggest starting with "The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook" by Vance Dickason. It's aimed at home stereo speakers, but there's a lot of good information there.
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Sorry Edbass, I meant to say that putting a 4 ohm SOURCE on a 16 ohm load wouldn't be a good idea. With two 8 ohm speakers, you could wire them in series for a 16 ohm load, or in parallel for a 4 ohm load. With solid state, you just get a different power ouput and volume depending on what load you hook them up to, as long as you don't go too low. With tube amps, you should match them up to whichever load they want to see to get the best sound and volume. So if you have a Sunn tube amp head with an 8 ohm and a 16 ohm load, then you want to hook it up to a cabinet or cabinets with the same load or your sound will suffer, and in extreme cases, the amp will suffer damage.
The other thing about the cabinets is that those angled boards behind the speaker basically reflect the sound down towards the port. They also provide resistance to the speaker cone when it is going back because of sound pressure waves hitting the angled boards. Both of these effects make the cabinet much louder than it would be if it was just empty inside, but they also serve to make the cabinet a lot louder fifteen feet away than it is right on stage. Some people like this effect, and others don't. The ones who didn't designed other type of cabinets like the SVT cabinet which is very loud and punchy and gives an even response right up close and far away too.
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Actually Soundmasterg, this time you are sort of correct. All amps are going to respond in kind depending on the load they are driving, regardless of being tube or SS. Tube amps are more sensitive in their response to a specific load and generally will have varied output trans taps to maximize their performance with a given load. Solid state is vastly more sophisticated, as the only real danger is running it at load levels below where they are designed to be stable, generally 4ohms is safe, and some are stable to 2ohms. Some commercial power amps are even stable down to <1ohm. Too little of a load is the amp wrecker, too much load is more forgiving, even with a tube dinosaur.
Speaker cabs come in many configurations for either specific response characteristics, or as in the case of musical instrument cabs to attempt to reproduce a wide range of frequencies evenly and efficiently, while being "flavored" for the particular instrument being reproduced. This subject is way too involved to get deeply into in this forum, so I'll try to specifically address horn loaded bass guitar enclosures, and keep it VERY basic. The "angled boards behind the speaker" are actually an attempt to emulate a much larger vented enclosure by "folding" one up inside the box. As a rule of thumb, the larger the enclosure the better the low frequency response. A speaker has two sides to its cone; the purpose of venting the enclosure is to take advantage of the back side by using it to supplement the sound pressure emanating from the front side. Only lower frequencies can be enhanced by a folded horn enclosure, because higher frequencies don't turn corners so good. The higher the frequency, the more directional the sound pressure, and visa versa. By varying the size and depth of the vent, you can fine tune it towards a particular frequency range. The horn loaded vent does extend the "throw" of a cab because it takes a few, or even sometimes several feet for the vented pressure to get a good "bite" on the ambient air molecules, which of course are the medium we are dealing with in the first place.
Kind of basic, to be sure, but I hopefully this pretty much sums up what's going on in our little 2X15 Sunn enclosure dilemma. Keep the info coming guys; this is a great source for all of us to learn more!
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Ummm, that last post (or maybe dissertation is more accurate) from "Guest" was actually from me. I guess I kinda forgot to sign in :oops: before I responded to the fresh, inovative, yet slightly misguided revelations on transducer theory from Soundmasterg.
EdBass
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Yeah, I figured it was you.
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Thanks for the background info Edbass. I was just giving a very basic amount of info, and probably was too basic to really tell him what was going on with his cabinet, so your post gave the info he needed I'm sure. :wink:
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Are you near Toledo? I'm pretty close, and I'll buy it if you want to sell it. Give me an idea of what you want for it, and we can negotiate based on condition when I get there. Or send me some jpegs and I'll lock on a price via email.
I still want it, too, but I'm nowhere near Toledo.
Well, Toledo, Oregon!
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I thought he said he got it in Toledo, Ohio?
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That was my point. I'm near Toledo, Oregon, not Toledo, Ohio.
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ok Isaac, I wasn't sure if that was the case or not! :) I'm up in the Portland area myself.
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I get upt there occasionally. Maybe we can get together sometime.
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Yeah, that would be fun Isaac. Just email me if you'll be up this way and we can figure something out. I have a 200S I restored and modified, and a 2000S that is unrestored and unmodified, a custom 1x15 with a rear loaded port like the old Sunn cabinets, and lotsa JBL D140's for when I get some money to make a Sunn style 2x15. I play a Rickenbacker bass that I made myself (its a copy of a '73 Rick 4001) and play guitar too, so we could have some fun playing together. :)
Greg
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hey I just noticed this thread, and soundmasterg and Issac are oregonians. I live in Newport, and was checking this thread because I have a nice sunn 215 with d-140's that I was thinking about selling! They are great sounding cabs with a tube amp (I use a '74 model t), but I have so many cabs I'm out of room! :(
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I have a nice sunn 215 with d-140's that I was thinking about selling! They are great sounding cabs with a tube amp (I use a '74 model t), but I have so many cabs I'm out of room!
What kind of cabs might you be willing to part with?
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I was just in Newport a cuple of weeks ago.
Like Ed, I'm interested in knowing what cabinets you have that you might sell.
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Hi again--I am thinking about selling the sunn 215. I have several marshall cabs, and a bunch of combos, but can't let them go. I play guitar, not bass, so the bass rig is just extra weight around here. The 215 is a late 60's with the center port and the original d-140's that to my knowledge have the original cones and sound great.
I'd be interested in one of the old sunn 115 cabs if I could find one; they take up a lot less space. Also, since this is studio stuff only, I don't need the volume of the 215 (man they move some air, don't they!! :wink: )
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you know, I go to portland a lot, usually 6 or more times a month. If you or anyone you know were interested, I could probably haul the cab up there for a look and listen .
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Okay, I'm interested. What do you want for it? when can I see it? I work weekends, so it would have to be midweek.
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Hi Issac-- I'll send you a private email.
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I've wanted one of these 2x15's myself since I sold my '67 about 10 years ago to get an SVT. Unfortunately I have no money so I can't get it. I'll probably just build some myself to put my JBL's in when I get the cash. If you're going to be in the Portland area with the cabinet, I'd love to take a look and listen though! Or if you get it Isaac, I'd love to see/hear it.
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If I get it, we'll work something out.
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That would be great Isaac! You can email me directly for a quicker response if/when it gets to that point.
greg
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I did it. I bought Guest's Sunn 2x15 cabinet. As I suspected, it was a 200S cabinet, apparently with the original JBL D140 drivers. Not mint, but in pretty good shape. Now I have to get my 200S in top shape. I think I'm getting some microphonics, and it sounds off. I was getting this with another cabinet, though, so it's not the 200S cabinet.
Even my wife says the complete 200S amp looks really good, in an old-school way.
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Hey Congrats Isaac! I miss my old 200S cabinet. They sure put out the volume and those D140's sound great!
You probably have some caps in need of replacement in your 200S. Electrolytics for sure if they are original, and maybe some coupling caps too. I've completely rebuilt and modified my 200s for a bit more bass response. You're welcome to try it if you want to cart the cabinet up here to Hillsboro! I have a custom 1x15 cabinet with a JBL E140 and an SVT head with a 8x10 style cabinet, but with 4 10's and 1 15 in it. I also have a 2000S that is completely original. You could try them also if you were able to make it up this way. If you want to hook up, then email me privately as I only check this board every so often.
Greg
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No rush. I'm going down to Jackson County next week, and I'm not sure when I'll be back, so I won't have time to go north until the 20th, at the earliest, perhaps not until the 26th.
By the way, do any of you Portland-area folks know my old friend Tobaj?
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I hope you enjoy the cab Issac! It was taking up a lot of room...but it sure sounded great when I took it out. I'd suggest trying JJ KT88's for power tubes in your head. Check the eurotubes website. Bob Pletka has always given me good service, and you heard the kt88's in the model t you tried. They really compliment the d-140 with an open top end, and lots of headroom. BTW Issac has a nice cd, with an interlude for unaccompanied bass: Fantasy in E major.
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Check out my CD at www.cdbaby.com/cd/isaacjones For the time being, all proceeds are going to the Red Cross for hurricane relief.
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I'll second the JJ KT88's recoomendation in a Sunn. I have them in my 200S I refurbished and modded, and I used them in the old '67 200S that I sold to get an SVT about 10 years ago. Great match for a Sunn and they are reliable and well made tubes. I haven't dealt with Bob at Eurotubes yet, but I've heard good stuff about him, and he's local too, which is a bonus.
Greg
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I'll definitely give him a look, once I get my finances back in order. Between my daughter getting married and buying too many toys, I'm in as bit of a pinch at the moment.
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Guest, I know you were looking for one of these.
http://cgi.ebay.com/SUNN-1x15-early-70s-115s_W0QQitemZ7358673535QQcategoryZ10171QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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thanks Issac, that's exactly what I am looking for. Shipping could be a bit high, but it is in good shape. Hope the 200s cab is working out!!
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Isaac, if you're ever able to get up here in the portland area to jam and compare equipment with that 200S cab sometime, let me know ahead of time, and I can probably set up something to test the freq response of your cabinet and introduce you to someone you may want to meet. Gotta remain mysterious for now though.
Greg
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A mystery, eh? Okay. Currently, I'm working Friday-Sunday, but my schedule changes in November, and I'll be working Thursday-Saturday and every other Wednesday. When is a good time for you?
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Well right now I'm unemployed, looking for work, and selling computers to make ends meet. So I'm flexible as far as schedule goes, but that may change if I get a job. Wednesday nights i go to a blues jam in portland.
Greg
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Sounds as though Wednesday might be ideal, then! Email me with the appicable address(es), phone number(s), etc., at isaac42@aol.com.
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Will do Isaac.
Greg
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I just started to play bass. Went to an old friends house cause he used to play. He gave me an old Sunn 215 cab with two round port holes and one jack in back and a small name plate on front. The speakers have a large square magnet on. Cleaned it up sounds great. Any idea what wattage. There is a date inside of 3/3/69.
Thanks Tim
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I just started to play bass. Went to an old friends house cause he used to play. He gave me an old Sunn 215 cab with two round port holes and one jack in back and a small name plate on front. The speakers have a large square magnet on. Cleaned it up sounds great. Any idea what wattage. There is a date inside of 3/3/69.
Thanks Tim