Sunn Beta Bass - Little Volume

drewfunk · #1 02-10-2013, 12:28 AM

I just got a Sunn Beta Bass 115 combo in trade. I was super excited because they are pretty popular amongst the stoner rock crowd and people get some awesome tones with guitar and bass. Well i brought it home and plugged in... And was dissapointed. I could have a conversation overtop of the amp with everything dimed. I tried plugging it into a different cab to see if it was the speaker and same thing. Any ideas what could be wrong?

The guy before me had it only a short while, but said the previous owner had wired in a different master volume pot, is it possible that it has an incorrect resistance rating? You also have to turn it the opposite direction to increase volume. Or does this sound like something wrong with the power section? Any help would be appreciated, i am very excited about this amp.

Thanks TB!

mc_muench · #2 02-10-2013, 12:39 AM

Sounds like you need about 3 more 15s..

Betas are only rated for 100 watts, make sure you use all of it! Make sure you are running a 4 ohm load, as well as crank that bvtch to 11. Sunn amps need to be cranked to get that SS grind. You could also pick up a slave amp to get you more power.

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drewfunk · #3 02-10-2013, 12:57 AM

Well most of what i read is that the Beta heads are loud as hell as guitar amps, and my friend's concert bass is ball shaking loud. But this i have to crank every knob with both channels blended to get any useable volume. Which means absolutely no clean to speak of because you have to crank the drive to hear the damn thing! But i will play around with a second cab to get her down to 4 ohms and see what happens.

mc_muench · #4 02-10-2013, 01:03 AM

The second cab needs to be an 8 ohm cab, EDIT: if you still want to use the combo speaker. Otherwise a single 4 ohm cab is fine too.

Betas dont run 2 ohms like most of the other SS sunn amps do.

It should be decently loud as a bass amp with enough speakers. If its as quiet as you say it is, I'd go have it looked at by a tech.

tom-g · #5 02-10-2013, 03:27 AM

Used to own one, way back then. I never had enough volume. 100 Watts just wasn't cutting it for what we were doing.