SPEAKER CHANGE MAGIC

[pickinatit]

Hey, Everyone,
I have a 40 watt Solarus piggy back with the original 2 x 12 cab.  The speakers were sounding a little... "buzzy"...is the best way to describe it.  I discovered that someone
(I'm the amps original owner) replaced one of the speakers somewhere along the line.
After some length and clever interogation of my Ex-Wife,  I found out that during the roughly two years my speaker cab and amp were in storage at "Her House"  she had loaned my amp and cab out to a friend of hers.  That must be when the speaker got replaced.  At least it was another Sunn Transducer. 

But that's not what this thread is all about.
I decided to replace the Sunn Speakers for now, have the Sunn transducers re-conditioned sometime in the future to be put back in the Sunn cab or to potentially use in an extension cab that I either find or build to match the Sunn 2 X 12.

In the meantime, last night I replaced the speakers with (1) Celestion HELLATONE 30 and (1) Celestion HELLATONE 60 from Avatar.  My Solarus head is in the shop having a grounded power chord put on it so I hooked up my 2000S to the cab, plugged in my 40 year old Harmony H73, Roy Smeck Signature guitar and....all I can say is....WOW!!!  Aside from purchases of other Sunn amps and cabs this had to be the single biggest impact purchase I ever made when it comes to effecting sound quality.

So, why the long winded post ? 
 Just a word for any Sunn owners, especially lesser afficionados like myself that have been playing thru original Sunn cabs for a lot of years.   As good as I thought my  2x12 sounded (before the buzz started),  The Hellatones were like opening up a whole new world of sound quality.
I don't say that to denegrate Sunn Transducers, not at all.  Only to say that the gradual  degradation of the speakers over a period of years might go unnoticed by not quite tuned in ears like mine.
I was missing the best my Sunn can give without even realizing it.
This realization will definetly speed up the process/desire for getting the Sunn Transducers Re-coned or whatever it takes to get that cab back to close to original.

[Reeps]

Interesting post, great to hear! I also have a sunn solarus 40 watt , albeit a combo but I love it. However, the bass control seems to really lack, not much changes from having the bass at 0 than at 10. When the amp is cranked up to around 6.5 - 7, the speakers get really rattly and 'thuddy'. I'm not sure about buzzy, but it's as if the bass is saying "I want to come out, but I can't!" The amp needs to be checked out and fixed up, it has some strange problems as far as modifications someone tried to make. As of now, I have my pedalboard split the signal into stereo with one lead going to to solarus and another to my 60 watt H&k solid state, which I only have the bass turned up on. The thickness of the sound is awesome, but I want the bass to come from the sunn, which I know they should be good at!

I had been talking to a friend of mine who runs a guitar shop in England and he is very much concerned that swapping out the old speakers with new ones will make the amp lose it's value. Is this typically the case? Obviously I would hold on to the old sunn speakers in it now, but if it is not performing at it's maximum, won't upgrading it only make it a better value? I guess I didn't know speakers could be re-conditioned, is that common? pricey?

He suggested I have it looked at, and then try it out with an extension cabinet to see how it sounds out of new speakers before I replace the old. Not a bad idea at all... however, I live about 3 hours from Minneapolis MN, or 1.5 hours from Sioux Falls SD. Anyone know of a good amp tech in the midwest area? Longshot but thought I'd ask!