Thanks for the input so far everyone! First, I want to re-emphasize that this is just an exercise at this point.
I would love to see the “Sunn rise again”. When I first started playing, Bassmans and Kustoms were the cool but common bass amps; Sunn’s were the amps I drooled over in the music store (in particular a two cabinet 2000S rig at my local walking distance music store) but could never in a million years afford to own. What the “big guns” played.
Recreating that magic would be a great personal accomplishment, but the chances of it coming to fruition are by no means a “lock”. I figured this forum would be the “best case scenario” for public opinion on the subject.
I'm sure anyone who would want one would be using it for guitar. It seems the days for a useable 80w bass amp are just over. You could still advertise it as a "bass" model and I don't think it would confuse your market. Anyone who would be attracted to this amp would have general amp history knowledge and general circuit knowledge in my opinion.
Excellent point IMO. The guitar crossover has traditionally been a factor in the long term reverence for small amps (small by current bass amps standards; Fender Bassman, and Traynor TBA-1 come to mind), and there seems to be a resurgence of interest in tube bass amps, and even
small tube amps. Ashdown is releasing a bass specific 30 watter this year
http://www.ashdownmusic.com/bass/detail.asp?ID=229,
the Alessandro Bassett Hound is well respected; Ultra boutique, from what I can tell a 200S output with a B15N front end
http://www.alessandro-products.com/amp-basset.html,
and of course the venerable 30 watt Ampeg Portaflex (like the one 3 feet to my right as I type this) is still a staple, and the rumor mill buzz is that Ampeg is thinking about
reissuing the B15 in a US built, hand wired “Hertitage” version in the near future.
Of course, as with these examples, to me what the amp ultimately gets used for is irrelevant as long as
somebody buys it!
I did some calculations last year. I think the 200S may be not powerful enough as long as they are not sold with very efficiant cabs. Anyway, the price for a 200S would be app. 600...800€, depending on trannies etc., handmade in the EU.
To me a 2000S with a SS would be very interersting. But to place it on the market you would need the Name SUNN with all it's history.
Well, you buildt the Amp inthe USA, I do help you to sell them here... 
Glad you chimed in Oli, based on firsthand experience with “boutique” amp manufacturers, the European market is extremely fertile ground for hand built US amps. I worked the Nashville Amp Expo
http://www.nashvilleampexpo.com/ in August and over beers and cigars with the exhibitors after hours the general consensus was that Europe was indeed lucrative, for some more than others.
I spoke to the Reeves Amplification guys just today, and they told me that some of their models sell stronger in the EU than in the US, in fact one successful model has almost
exclusively sold in Europe.
If this concept moves further forward you can bet I’ll be picking your brain extensively, brother!
And given the Fender association, a Sunn badge might raise more questions than answers and hurt perceived value. Factory warranty a good idea; U.S. manufacture a must. (Tualatin, Ore., would be the best, of course!)
Regarding price, it'd have to be priced less than $2,000 given the lower power. That's my two cents.
I haven’t even really given any effort towards Sunn badging, but honestly if I thought it
were feasible I would love to slap a Sunn badge on such a project. For that matter, somehow also having Mr. Sundholm involved would be the icing on
THAT cake.
A Sunn badge is most likely a moot point, but you do raise an interesting wrinkle that I hadn’t thought about with the “more questions than answers” angle.
However, I don’t want to even
think about approaching Fender with an offer for the trademark (unless I somehow hit the lottery), and I don’t know but suspect that Mr. Sundholm was done with “Sunn” many “Moons” ago.
The lower the price the better, particularly with bass gear. It’s been my observations that bassist and guitarists are indeed usually two different mindsets, and bassists are notoriously cheap!
It’s obviously not a set rule, and as a bassist myself I’m not trying to “throw stones”, but I’ve seen guitarists regularly pay thousands of dollars for amplification, but bassists generally start to squeal at about a grand.
Are these amp(s) going to have CSA or UL approval? If so you are in for some very intere$$$ting work to get a design through type and safety approval. Without the Sunn logo you are in the boutique market - probably just break even selling a few. Unfortunately, as you said above, the bass amp design trend is moving towards Class D (quasi class G/H??) powerful, tiny & light with similar design philosophy in the attached loudspeaker.
Yep, there are a number of $ub$tantial hurdles, all of which contribute to the ultimate pricing of any product, and certification can be intimidating when it comes to electronic gear manufacturing. In this theoretical scenario I think CE is the most important, particularly based on the International market potential for US built musical gear.
And, IMO you are likely correct that without a Sunn badge boutique would be the market. It’s interesting that you mention the Acoustic situation, seeing all that blue in GC kinds of gets my wheels turning, but that is a market that is MAJOR investment, you have to sell your soul to the Sam Ash or Bain Capital “devils”, and would almost
require off shore manufacture and corner cutting production focusing on price, price, price.
All of which I have little interest in being associated with personally, and far too much headache at this point in my life!
Uhmmm… By the way, have you got any more of those dandy knobs? I might need a couple thousand!
In regard to the low wattage....from what I read on other forums, the trend now a-days (for most bar and club performers anyway) seems to be line out into a powerful PA system. Low wattage wouldn't be a problem in that case. Include the addition of a "direct line out" (?? if that's the correct terminology) and make tone the major selling point.
+100. A direct out would go a long way towards leveling the SPL playing field for a low watt bass amp. A lot of bassists even just run into the PA through a DI with
no amp at all.
The problem with that is that they also have
no tone at all in my opinion. When I got involved with the Reeves C225 project, the two design parameters I was most insistent on were; a DI off the output transformer to get as much of the tubey tone goodness as possible to the PA if necessary, and 24” width so it wouldn’t look dorky on most modern bass cabs (a personal pet peeve of mine).
A similar DI on this theoretical 200S clone is one of the “in light of advances in technology certain other changes would likely be warranted out of pure practicality” I was referring to in my initial post.
I predict a change in the size/weight trend in the near future. From what I'm reading on other forums I believe that many bass players are beginning to "Re-discover" the wonders of 2 X 15 sound.
Maybe a PAIR of 1 x 15's would go over better though. More easily individually transportable.
Absolutely. 410’s are still dominant, but the trend is changing. Again back to the Reeves; by far the majority of the R&D for the speakers cabinets were done with a Sunn 215S cab.
Loaded with the Reeves designed drivers it sounded the best of the myriad other commercial boxes they bought, and “acoustically balanced” Thiele boxes they built for comparison, by a pretty wide margin too. When the Sunn cab made the rounds of working bassists, to a person they in essence said "sounds great; cut it in half”.
And,
that’s where the production Reeves 115 cab came from.
the main problem i would see is copyright infringment or patent infringment
No worries there, the last thing I need is to get in that pickle. If I were to actually do this type of project, covering my
assets would be job one for my attorney.
i would focus on the model T's,2000 s ,spectre,1200 and some of the others that had vibrato,tremolo,and reverb no crappy effects driven by solid state thou. 
I’m sure the Model T is a great amp, but my heart lies with the Sundholm era Sunn gear. As I mentioned above, the 30” wide Sunns are a logistical problem from an aesthetic standpoint for me, so the four output amps would have to be re-engineered to fit a smaller chassis while being faithful to the original circuit. Not a problem, but so far beyond this theoretical discussion that it’s probably not relevant to this thread.
I would think that he first step would be no effects at all, and although as a bassist myself it not relevant, I’m no fan of transistors in the signal path, ever.
Thanks again for all the input, and keep ‘em coming!
