i just recently stumbled across the sunn site, and although it seems that all of the basic facts concerning sunn's heyday have been posted by numerous sources, i thought i'd throw in my memories and acquired info. when i started playing bass in '68 there wasn't much choice in amplification for "kids in the garage" when you wanted to move up from whatever piece o'shit practice amp you started out with. assuming you had convinced your parents that this rock'n'roll thing wasn't a passing phase, you started to drool over those big boxes in those colorful catalogs. this was especially true if you did play bass, 'cause a guitar player could still get away with plenty of noise on some 20 watt shoebox, my kalamazoo( yes, that is an actual brand--a gibson subsidiary) "bass 30" (two 10" and 30 screamin' goose fart watts) didn't exactly cut the mustard(cheese, perhaps). granted, jack bruce was the man amongst men at the time for me, and his tone was most ripping(in more ways than one) but a stronger, clearer tone was preferred 981450f the time. so, what could i cajole my parents into buying that would resemble a refrigerator? the solid state vox stuff was too frightfully expensive, seemingly underpowered,and as far as bass was concerned, sounded like crap. plus at that time vox was becoming a bit "unfasionable". i checked out a fender bassman--silverface, upright cabinet, but still with two 12"--what the hell were they thinking? i came away unimpressed--maybe i should have tried a showman--but fender amps have never done it for me. even when a bassman is hooked up to an efficient speaker, it still grinds into misdirected sludge when you push it. acoustic 360's were expensive pro gear, ampeg had yet to come out with the svt and the bassmanesque v4, kustoms, to me, just looked stupid, so what else was there? i noticed that alot of these newer, dare i say psychedelic, power bands were using, as far as bass was concerned, these marshall-like(in cosmetics only of course) amps that looked like they were built like tanks.when i'd see some band on tv in those sparse pre-mtv days, the bass players were, if not using acoustic 360's, playing through some kind of sunn amp. so i made the trek out to a music store in the suburbs(my local one was strictly fender/vox/gibson), checked out a sorado model (60 watts and two 15"--the classic set-up) and was quite happy. even with my puebescent ignorance of audio design, i could sense that the cabinet, being deeper than the usual fender, could generate big boomy lows that a bassman couldn't get near. while i discovered later on that 60 watts isn't really a whole lot of power for bass, the head (essentially a 200s with a solid state rectifier) sure had me fooled, especially when i turned on the bass boost switch. irony of ironies, when i joined my first "serious" garage band not long after (this being spring of '70) the two guitarists were powered by a solos (solid state twin-like combo--the begining of the downfall) and one of those munchkin upright tube combos whose model name escapes me--the one where the head is scrunched into an open-back 2x12" cab. i used the sorado rig for ten years, playing everything from proto-metal psych to new wave, even doing a summer stock production of "godspell" (don't even ask), finally giving in to the stanley clarke tech-mindset of preamps/effects loops/power amps, etc. while i still have alot of that kind of gear, with all the retro-mindedness in the last few years(coupled with the eventual pangs of nostalgia) i started picking up pieces of sunn tube stuff here and there, 'cause it was so cheap and overlooked. even as late as 2 1/2 years ago i found a 2000s for $100 in a funky little store near the pier in santa barbara. i doubt if that will ever happen again! so, enough of the memoirs, already--who do i recall using sunn gear back in the day? well, lets see...noel redding with hendrix, of course. the hendrix connection illustrates why sunn made such great bass amps but the guitar line just didn't go over too well. with the basic design lifted from a serious hi-fi system of the time instead of just sticking low frequency capacitors in front of a guitar amp, and employing kt88/6550 tubes which simply will not break up unless pushed real hard, no wonder jimi hated 'em! absolutely great for bass, so-so for guitar, unless you play country or jazz. i could be very wrong, but i think at some point buck owens used sunn. anyway, redding; john entwistle--a keeper of the faith for many years--both he and pete used sunn during those early u.s. tours ('67-'68) when they were still trying to get a foothold in america and still busting up equipment. why townshend didn't stick with sunn surprises me, as the sound is quite similar to hiwatt when pushed. granted, entwistle did go along with pete in the switch to hiwatt in '69, but by '71 onwards reverted to the sunn backline. all of the classic san francisco bands' bassists, it seems used at least sunn speaker cabs if not whole rigs--the airplane's jack cassidy, the dead's phil lesh, the guy with country joe (bruce somebody?), stu cook with ccr, the guy with it's a beautiful day, and so on. l.a.? the buffalo springfield, jerry scheff with the doors all over the l.a. woman album (and with elvis in his fat vegas years), and steppenwolf, to name a few. in the midwest, the buckinghams (with a complete sunn backline), the mc5 (go look at yer copy of kick out the jams, there's an american flag draped over a 2x15" cab), the cryin' shames (a great nuggets-era group not known outside of chicago), brownsville station (remember "smokin' in the boys room"?) with their wall of colisseum stacks on "midnight special", and of course, me. how about james brown's j.b.'s, circa '71, as well as the "rough and ready" era jeff beck group. the east coast can summed up in one word, mountain. leslie west and felix papalardi were probably sunn's greatest sales reps (c'mon, just look at that inside cover of the old woodstock album!) the velvet underground used 1200s and 2000s amps in the post-john cale days(look at the back cover of "loaded") and when i saw lou reed touring for the "transformer" the band had colisseum stacks. todd rundgren, foghat, derek and the dominoes on tour, the dictators, god, i know i'm forgetting somebody, but maybe someone out can help fill in the blanks. mick karn, an incredibly unique (if not completely obscure) fretless bassist with the early '80's british group japan used colisseum gear, but i can't think of too many notable players in the last 15-20 years, but that probably has alot to do with the downhill course with all those truly ugly post-mid '70's transistor monstrosities and eventual demise of the original company. as far as the new stuff is concerned, well, it looks good on paper, combining the "classic" vibe with all the modern features, but i have yet to try out any of it. now, in terms of all those different models of the original tube amps, i got news for ya. they're all basically the same amp, with a few permutations here and there. for all of you looking for schematic info, just pick up aspen(mr. groove tube)pittman's "tube handbook". it's all there--aside from the earliest models that used el34's and only cranked out 40 watts, the 2xkt88/6550 power section(gz34 rectifier)with the 12ax/6an8 preamp section is the basic template from which all the classic tube models stem. the variations occur in the tone control configurations and whether or not there's reverb and tremelo(add another 12ax for the reverb driver). i have a '67 100s (guitar) with the control numbers painted on the face plate(not on the nobs as '68 onwards) featuring volume, bass, treble, and contour, but no mid-boost switch or rev/trem. i also had at one time a '68 200s bass amp, with volume, bass, treble, plus bass and treble boost switches, and i set both amps up in a/b fasion with one speaker cab. after a little bit of tone control tweeking on both, i could go between both with my trusty '66 p-bass and not be able to sense a difference! both amps had tube rectifiers, so any variance in tone is stictly in the preamp configuration. i've had a scepter and a solarus, manufactured within months of each other in '71, pulled both chassis out, went over the components on both, and really, they're the same amp. what the company did was, depending on the speaker cab and/or jbl/cts used in the cab, they would assign a different "name" to the head. kinda redundant and confusing, but i guess some marketing genius thought it would give the appearance of a vast selection. so, basically, the 200s begat the sorado, the major difference being that the tube rectifier was swithched to solid state for tighter response, and the speaker cab design went from the original pseudo-folded horn to a continuous baffle with two port tubes in the middle of the cab (which i think is far more efficient). the 190 bass is just a sorado with a sticker over the face plate. on that note, i picked up another 2000s (this time $150) from some guy in the san fernando valley that had a "350-L" sticker on it. this amp had a solid state rectifier, whereas the earlier 2000s had two gz34 tubes for that purpose(being twice the amp a 200s is). now, besides the additional two 6550 power tubes, there is the tone control variance in that a 2000s features volume, treble, bass, contour(a primitive midrange boost/cut), and a very effective bass boost switch. the 200s, besides being half the amp(but no inferiority complex here!) has, as i mentioned earlier, volume/bass/treble and the two bass and treble boost swithches. as far as the big guitar amps go, the 1000s and 1200s are the same 4x6550 120 watt amp with the addition of rev/trem. the 60 watt 100s evolved to include the midboost switch and rev/trem/xtra 12ax driver tube, and was basically the scepter/solarus forerunner. now, one thing i have not been able to correlate is the switch from the tight-woven diagonal grille cloth to the up and down rectangular fender style, but i think it had to have been in early '69. does anyone know the reason behind this? also, the rectifier conversion to solid state appears to have happened in mid '68, but again, any concrete info? tube rectifiers make for a fat guitar sound, but really for bass my experience is to go with the transistor ones if you can. i noticed on the bulletin board that alot of you out there are having hum problems, so what i would suggest is to check out and replace the filter caps. by the way, if you don't have both of ritchie fliegler's books, "amps!" or "the complete guide to guitar and amp repair", drop everything, go out and get them now. they're indespensible! also, in case you don't know, groove tubes is having the hard to find kt88 tubes manufactured in eastern europe again, and its worth the extra bit of money to have them instead of 6550's. ok, ok ,ok, so this has inadvertently turned into "war and peace", and i gotta go to bed, but i hope this spiel will inform or entertain some of you! all power to the transformers!
