New here, but an old hand and a big fan of Sunn equipment.
I haven't performed much since 1980, but did more than my share till then. Recently had a bug to get some old gear and put a small jam group together in the basement.
Originally a guitar player, I started playing bass in 1963 with a white Fender Bassman amp and a blonde (both bought new in '63 at Jimmy's in NYC) Precision Bass. Later, I had a pair of Vox Super Beatle amps for awhile, then switched over to Sunn in the late '60's. My Sunn setup was a pair of 2000S heads with four 2000S cabinets, each carrying two Altec 421A 15-inch speakers. You can probably imagine that I'm drooling as I type.
I played that P-Bass till the mid-1960's, then swapped an old country guy in Ohio for his early Precision Bass (SN 000217). Stupidly, I smashed it up on a gig I don't even remember, but I do remember splitting the body down the center and putting the head stock right through the speakers in the Beatle cabinet.
I traded the remains of my classic Precision to Tim Bogert, who gave me a then-new Jazz Bass and an Eko violin bass just to get the pickup. I put a Precision neck on the Jazz bass for its wider area, then chucked it soon afterward for a newly introduced Dan Armstrong bass in 1969. Dan had a guitar shop on 49th Street at the time, and made a number of mods to my guitar player's equipment. I bought the Armstrong sight-unseen, just for knowing Dan's work first hand. Best move I ever made.
The combination of an original Armstrong through that Sunn rig was amazing, and until very recently, I've played no other bass but the Armstrong ever since I got it. Unfortunately, my Sunn rig was stolen on a gig in the mid-70's.
My PA setup in the late '60's was the original Sunn Coliseum, with a four-input head that looked like a 100S, two (2 x15?) cabinets and a pair of those incredible Sunn JBL Golden Lens Reflector horns. Later on, I upgraded to a Sunn component PA: four baffled Sunn cabinets, each with a single 15-inch JBL, two large Sunn fiberglass horns, a 16-channel Sunn mixer, two Coliseum slaves for the cabinets and one more for the horns. Two Concert slaves drove the monitors, which were two single 12-inch (maybe 15 - hard to remember) Sunn triangular enclosures with small horns for the front line, and two dual 12-inch Sunn triangular enclosures in the rear for the drums and the Hammond B-3. An Echo-Plex was added, vocal mics were all SM-58's, SM-57 for instruments, and we had an original Sunn 100-foot snake to get the board away from the stage.
So here I am, 40 years later and putting together some old gear for my basement. I now have a 200S head with a single 200S cabinet, and still prefer my Armstrong over anything else. My wife bought me a Mexican P-Bass, which plays surprisingly well, and seems to punch and sound as well as any Fender I have ever owned (my early-50's classic was very cool, but truly never had the authority of the newer style P-Basses). Just a few weeks ago, I finished building a custom fretless P-bass. It has a gold-anodized pickguard, gold hardware, and a natural stain and clear lacquer finish. The fretless plays very nicely and I like it a lot.
I have a small Sunn Concert 1 powered mixer and two Sunn 1505 (probably by Fender) cabinets for voices. This is not what I'm used to, but it's still more than enough for the basement or a coffee house gig. I still prefer an SM-58 over anything else for voice, so three 58's are on hand.
I have a '74 Stratocater that I hate, a '92 Strat that I love, an Armstrong guitar built from original parts in the mid-90's, and a '74 Mustang that is the best '50's clean-and-twangy rock guitar in the world. I play the Mustang and an Ibanez accoustic through a '74 or '75 silver face Twin Reverb with the JBL's that Fender offered at the time. I play the Strats and Armstrong through a (solid state - ugh!) Marshall VS100r combo with a single 12-inch speaker and a 4 x 10 Marshall extension cabinet. Got an old Vox-Wah, MXR Phase 90 and Distortion + pedals for the Marshall setup.
I've had a great time restoring all my Sunn equipment. I used the Sunn/Fender Tolex from Angela Instruments for the PA cabinets and a recover of my road-worn Twin, and got some Fender Black face grille cloth for the Twin and PA cabinets. All my fasteners have been replaced with stainless, which I polish on a dual buffer before using. I also polished the corners and handle hardware as best I could, but the slight discoloration that couldn't be removed keeps a little realism in the components. The Tolex on the 200S head and cabinet was very nice, and looks almost new after my cleanup.
I washed the Tolex thoroughly with Palmolive liquid dish detergent and water, and scrubbed every inch with a medium-soft bristle brush. Then I shot it with a commercial (Orange) automotive interior cleaner, again using the brush to get it into the crevices of the Tolex. When dry, I used black liquid shoe polish over the entire surface. This hides most of the scuffing, and brings the life back into the material. Finally, I sprayed the covering with Maguire's automotive vinyl dressing and gave it a good wipe down before reassembling the equipment.
Tolex clean, hardware and fasteners refreshed, grilles washed or replaced and all my old crap looks pretty good for being 35-40 years old. Now all I have to do is find a few old and cranky bastards my own age who remember what it was like to sing and play when people used to actually listen and care.
Thanks for letting me share,
Warmest regards,
