Questons about Colliseum 880

[Tim Swartz]

I just acquired this beast w/ a single 18 ported bottom w/ 4 ohm Cerwin Vega speaker.  My 14yr old son already had an identical bottom and now has them stacked, the ports are on opposite sides.  The cabs are about the size of a typical 4x12.  In addition to the vol and tone controls, the amp has distortion and sustain.  The distortion acts more like a presence control and the sustain acts like a master volume.  There are 2 RCA jacks in the middle top of the back panel that are about the same distance appart as the reverb jacks on a Fender amp...Someone told me this is the John Entwhistle rig from the Quadrophenia era.  It sounds amazing! Big tight and fat.  The top end out of these speakers is unreal,like a JBL D130.

Questions:

Is this a Lead or Bass amp?
Power rating?
Power handling of the cabs?
What are the RCA jacks?
What does this stuff typically sell for?
Any other info?

Thanks for any and all responses, Tim Swartz

[Tom]

I don't have a lot of info either, but,

I believe you can run anything you want through it.  Most people think it is a bass amp because of the power:  rated at 320 watts at 2 ohms continuous and 880 peak watts.  I use mine (rarely) with my guitar.  I've only talked to one other guy who used one and he used it for his keyboards because of all the clean headroom.  I would suggest the rca jacks are probably for a footswitch to control the sustain and distortion.

Sorry, I have no idea about your cabs.  I've only seen one 880 on e-bay and I believe it went for around $400.00.

Good luck, I hope this helps  Tom

[Entwistlefan#1]

I have a 1-18" cabinet also. Bass Northwest in Seattle told me that the Vega speaker will handle a conservative 300 watts RMS. I bought my cab at an American Music store in Tacoma for $300, and that was a good price. I think they usually go for around $400-$500.

[anthonybay16]

1-The 880 is a bass amp. The same as a regular coliseum bass but with an added distortion.These were very clea amps in their day so the distortion was added to
dirty up the sound a bit.
2-Power rating-220 watts @ 4ohms(1 cabinet)
320 watts @ 2 ohms (2 cabinets)
3-The cabinets were rated @300 watts each.
4-The RCA jacks were for a footsitch for the distortion.
5-I have no idea what they sell for.I have mine for over 25 years.I paid about $1200 back then. I am surprised to see an interest
in this equipment today.
6-When you turn the amp on it makes a loud thump.This is normal.On stereo equipment a relay is usually installed to keep a thump like this from frying your tweeters.
7-There are 2 cabinets which are labeled top
and bottom.If you were to remove the grills
you would see that the top cabinet has a port on the bottom while the bottom cabinet has the port on the top. The reason for this was to create one large tuned port which is why the Sunn Coliseum projects its sound so well.
8-Sunn also made cabinets for the coliseum bass that had the same speaker in a folded horn type enclosure.
9-The speaker manufacturer varied on these
cabinets.Mine are Cerwin Vega the same speakers that were used in the movies for the picture earthquke.They have extreme low end and can take alot of power without breaking up.