The sunn Forum
Sunn Musical Equipment => Q & A => Topic started by: Pete on April 28, 2004, 07:20:46 pm
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Hi all ...Does anybody have any info on a Sunn 610L cabinet???
I have one and was wanting to know what the thing is worth,what year it dates back to , what kind of speakers are in it..etc.......
If anybody has one of these or has had one and can provide me with a little info on it it would be greatly appreciated....
I was thinking of selling it but decided to keep it and try to get a tube Amp Head for it.
Thanks Again for any help!!
Pete
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I have a shop drawing of the cabinet that was put out by Sunn in their service manual... It probably had Eminence speakers and was most likely built between 68-71
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mine has 10" Sunn Transducers. I have the black-faced version.
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If they are the black faced speakers, they were made for Sunn by Eminence Speaker Corp. You can get the same speaker from Eminence on their website.
It probably was originally sold with a tube top Septre or Solarus or one of the early Concert tops, if it was sold in the 70's
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IIRC, the 610S, 612S, 312S and 415S all came out around 1974. Amps available at the time were the Model T, Concert Lead and Bass, and possibly the 100S. Coliseums too, I think. The 610L, with the black grill cloth and white baffle board, came out a year or two later, along with the Beta heads.
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Issac, I believe you are right... I remember selling the 610 in my shop in the early 70's. I had thought it was when I first started selling Sunn in 68.
I sold cabinets with six ten inch speakers in the same configuration in 68-70 but they were ones we made in the shop.
I remember when the first 610 Sunn came out and thought about the finance guy, I think his name was Rich Stevens or Stevenson, looking at the ones we were building. Maybe that is where the idea came from.... who knows. :roll:
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anybody have a copy of the wiring setup for these cabinets?
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I should have something in the service tech manual for all the models sold in the early 70's
When I get back to the office on Tuesday, I will check. Send me an email with your address and the cabinet model you need and I will send it if I have one.
Richard Hughes
richard@pennnierich.com
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The wiring is a Series/Parallel and works out to 6 ohms
Most of the Sunn amps had an impedence envelope from 4-16 ohms so anyconfiguration that you used, as long as the impedence stayed within that envelope was ok
If this doesn't make sense, let me know
plug
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/ \
/ \
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l |
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Additional info on 610
This was sold with the Concert Lead Amp
Speakers 6-10" Sunn (mfg by Eminence) Speakers
Enclosure Impedence 6 ohms
Enclosure Design Front loaded horn, projector configuration
Enclosure Dimensions 42 1/2" x 24" x 15" (with Casters)
Enclosure Weight 105 lbs
Recommended use Guitar
Enclosure Resopse 500 htz to 12 Khz
richard@pennierich.com :)
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the drawing on my last response did not come through so I will try to explain
wire from the plug to the positive of left speaker in row one
wire from the negative of the left speaker in row one to the positive of the right speaker in row one
wire from the negative of the right speaker in row one to the plug
wire from the positive of the left speaker in row one to the positive of the left speaker in row
wire from the negative of the left Speaker in row two to the positive of the right speaker in row two
Wire from the negative of the right speaker in row two to the negative of the right speaker in row one.
wire from the positive of the left speaker in row two to the positive of the
left speaker in row three.
wire from the negative of the left speaker in row three to the positive of the right speaker in row three
wire from the negative of the right speaker in row three to the negative of the right speaker in row two...
This is a Series/Parallel wiring configuration
if you need further help email me
richard@pennierich.com
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Great info! Thanks alot.
I'm gonna pull a couple speakers out of my 610 cab soon to get them reconed.
On a side note: isn't a 6ohm configuration a littly funky? I mean, isnt' there another way to wire the speakers to get something more like 8 or 4ohms...matching impedence with these cabs is kinda hard to do if you chain them with something else.
I've seen other newer 6X10 cabinets (Ampeg, SWR) that were 8ohms. What would be the difference in the wiring setup?
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With the impedence envelope and the use of slave amps, it was no problem to have 6 ohm cabinets.
The other 610 cabinets that have different impedence use speakers with different impedence to make the total ohms come out that way.
Unless it was someone, like Hendrix, who used Sunn and then bad mouthed the equipment and had it taken away because it was promo and free, most of the players used one or two cabinets. If they used more, they used the slave amps and the impedence was no problem.
That was another thing that Sunn had, hands down, over Fender.
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So the 6x10 was for guitar. Any thoughts on how it would sound for bass?
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The 610 L was a lead cabinet, thus the "L".
As far as using it for Bass, it would give a very bright sound and the speakers may not hold up because of the range of motion required to achieve the lower tones.
Sunn was noted for the clean sound and one of the most noted features was actually feeling the sound of the bass. Using the 610, in my opinion, may give a sound like the old Fender Bassman or a Marshall bottom. As a Bass player, I am most impressed by the clean low end without loss of tone in the mids and high notes that was a feature of the original Sunn equipment.
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As a suggestion, you could put different drivers in that cabinet that would be more suitable for the bass.
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I wouldn't recommend any 10 inch speaker for bass and I would never recommend using the 610L cabinet for bass.
Being a Sunn purist, I do not recommend using any equipment for any application other than what it was originally intended.
My suggestion would be sell the 610 and buy a Sunn Bass cabinet... There are plenty of guitar players that would love to have that cabinet and once you play through a sunn bass cabinet, you won't want to use anyting else. I would recommend finding an original Sunn cabinet and not one of the later modified, downgraded :evil: Fender copies.
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I also have the black faced version with the white baffle board. Mine has transducers, although one of them is blown. Does anybody know what model speaker on the eminence website is the equivelent to the transducer? I really like this cab, I want to keep it as close as possible to original, and also match my other speakers. Thanks!
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i bought a 610L that had four replaced speakers and the two originals. once i get the cash, i'm going to replace all six with some newer, more powerful speakers. if you want, you can have one of my original transducer speakers. one of them has a rattle when a bass is played through it at loud volumes (voice coil?) and the other one works perfectly. let me know if you want it since i won't be needing it
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I also have the black faced version with the white baffle board. Mine has transducers, although one of them is blown. Does anybody know what model speaker on the eminence website is the equivelent to the transducer?
The term "Transducer" is just the technical name for what are commonly called "Speakers". All speakers are actually transducers. The Sunn "Transducers" are just regular old speakers, but all of the Sunn guitar cabinets I've come in contact with that used the term "Transducer" also used AlNiCo motors and are more difficult (expensive) to come by now days. I want to keep it as close as possible to original, and also match my other speakers.
You can always have the bad speaker re-coned, unless the frame or motor is physically damaged. It's hard to beat AlNiCo's for a tube amplified rig, they seem to have a warmth and less edgy attack than other magnet materials. Also, tube distortion is much smoother and less abrupt than transistor distortion and less demanding on the typically lower power capacity AlNiCo drivers. For solid state amps and some higher power bass guitar applications, you are probably best served by a more modern 10" transducer type that has better power handling capabilities.
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anyone know what the individual stock speaker ohms of this cabinet are? if its series parrellel wiring, that implies they are 6 ohm speakers, which is strange.
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Strange, perhaps, but that's correct. Keep in mind that these were designed to go with solid state heads, where the impedance is not critical, so long as it doesn't go too low.
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anyone know what the individual stock speaker ohms of this cabinet are? if its series parrellel wiring, that implies they are 6 ohm speakers, which is strange.
If the cab was wired series parallel the individual drivers would have to be 9 ohms. Which is of course possible, but I think having VC's wound for 9 ohms for one specific cabinet design would be inefficient from a manufacturing standpoint. (of course, Sunn did go under!)
Also, if they were going to custom wind drivers specifically for the 6X10, you would think they would wind them to 12 ohms so they would get a more universally usable 8 ohm cabinet. I'll betcha they used 8 ohm drivers and the impedance was actually 5.3, like Isaac says; "Keep in mind that these were designed to go with solid state heads, where the impedance is not critical, so long as it doesn't go too low."
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I think we're all correct, just saying it differently. The 610L used 8 ohm drivers, wired series parallel, for a total nominal impedance of 5.3 ohms The speaker as a whole was rated at 6 ohms. Close enough.
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I loaded my 6-10 cabinet with J.B.L's and it sounded great for bass with my Model T!!!!!!!!!!!!
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thats what i was thinking, it seems weird to have special speakers in this sucker. you'd have thought they'd just wire it to 8 ohms, though.
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I loaded my 6-10 cabinet with J.B.L's and it sounded great for bass with my Model T!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which JBL's?
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I believe they were D-110's,I had a 2-15 and 18" folded horn to even out the sound!
Ran my Rick Bass stereo with bridge pickup through Model T into 6-10 and neck pickup through a 400B into 2-15 and 18 horn,sounded loud and clean,wish I still had it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I couldn't think of any JBLs that would give much in the way of lows in that cabinet. But, as a mid/high cabinet, I'm sure it rocked!
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okay so while i might as well jump on this while i can, i'm in the middle of buying a 610L for 200 bucks and shipping and i wanted to run it with my 67 215 for guitar and bass, i have 2 4x12's as well that i might use if i can't configure but due to the odd Ohm rating, if i'd wire my 215 which i believe is at 8 ohms with the 6 ohm 610L what would i want to run it at? In the 8 or 4 position? typically i run 4 15's for my guitar sound but i'm looking to get some 10's together because i use for bass and lead so i want the diversity. plus my 215 is loaded with the metal framed Altec Lansing speakers originally, that thing rips, so i'll be able to use that for my 215 sound if i decide just to use 15's.
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The 610 L was a lead cabinet, thus the "L".
What was the 610 S?
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S was for "speaker". the idea was to use it for guitar or bass, whichever you preferred. In general, cabinets with 12" or smaller drivers were used for guitar, 15" and larger for bass, but there were exceptions. For instance, John Entwistle used Coliseum heads with both 118 and 412 cabinets. Probably he opted for better drivers than the basic Sunn transducers, though. 118M or 118V cabinets, along with 412M cabinets, but I'm just guessing.
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610S is a sealed cabinet (infinite baffle) in the earlier silver grill cloth/metal logo series.
610L has a slotted port along the bottom in the 70's-80's red plastic logo series (hard to see in photos, but it's there).
Both were marketed as guitar cabinets, but with the 610L offering more low-end response.
Both probably had the same speakers.
Compared to traditional 8x10 (or even other 6x10), the Sunn 610 will very easily fit in most back seats.
I've seen photos of some folk using the 610L for bass guitar, but probably not the best choice (especially with stock speakers).
Would make for an interesting study if loaded with bass speakers; especially if positioned horizontally with 3 drivers aiming towards the floor (coupling along that plane) and 3 drivers pointing upwards as monitors for the bassist.
I prefer the aesthetics of the 70's-80's red plastic logo series; liked the white baffle boards behind the black grill cloth.
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i bought a 610L that had four replaced speakers and the two originals. once i get the cash, i'm going to replace all six with some newer, more powerful speakers. if you want, you can have one of my original transducer speakers. one of them has a rattle when a bass is played through it at loud volumes (voice coil?) and the other one works perfectly. let me know if you want it since i won't be needing it
I realize this post is 10 years old now, but if you have those two speakers lying around I could really use them. I'm going to get my original 4 reconed, but am missing the other 2 baskets.