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Anyone know what this thing is?

#21
First find out for sure the size of the speaker. They made both a 1x15 for the 200S and I believe a 1x18 as well for the 2000S. I think this is the 1x15 due to the space around the speaker and I've been looking for one of these for many years. They seldom come up as everyone wanted the 2x15 version. By the way the badge alone is worth about a hundred bucks to some people. I would pay that pricefor it (the cab) right now. Damn I want that cab for. My 200S. As that's what the bass player for the Kingsman (Louie Louie) was playing the first time I saw them in about 1964.
 
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#22
Kirk Bryant said:
First find out for sure the size of the speaker. They made both a 1x15 for the 200S and I believe a 1x18 as well for the 2000S. I think this is the 1x15 due to the space around the speaker and I've been looking for one of these for many years. They seldom come up as everyone wanted the 2x15 version. By the way the badge alone is worth about a hundred bucks to some people. I would pay that pricefor it (the cab) right now. Damn I want that cab for. My 200S. As that's what the bass player for the Kingsman (Louie Louie) was playing the first time I saw them in about 1964.
Click to expand...

I thought it was confirmed that it was an 18" BUT good point, the 15's were much more popular and there were more options for 15's back then as well. Double-checking is a good idea here.
 
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#23
edbass said:
I think it's a Sunn 118V or 118M cab, but that driver doesn't look right. The 118M had an aluminum dome with the vented cap, but I agree with B-string that the surround isn't right, and the fit and finish of the cone looks pretty "homemade".
It's certainly a bass cab, not guitar, but who knows what that driver actually is; might be a cheap re-cone on a CV or Sunn Magna speaker, or might be something else.
The ((O))) is a stylized representation of a speaker radiating sound/sun, rather than any model designation, part of the 1967 redesign of the original Sunn logo. It's on every model of cabinet or amp.
Click to expand...
It's either that or a 155-S, hard to judge whether it's a 15" or 18" from the pic. Ca.'72 to '74-ish. The speaker's definitely original, I've owned many 1970's Sunns since 1975, that's what came in there...Eminence, they had the vented aluminum dust cap. The surround looks right to me based on memory, but it could've been reconed. The bad news is that those speakers SUCK and you'd want to swap it out anyway. The "M" stands for Magna, which were Sunn's premium speaker (actually OEM'd Cerwin Vegas) and those are decent speakers. The Eminence, though, are useless. The 15"s were only rated at 60 watts, can't remember what the 18" was supposed to handle.

The good news is that those '70s Sunn cabs are really great sounding bass cabs, that's what you'd be paying for.
 
#25
There is no way possible that you can identify (with ANY degree of certainty) if the driver is original. There is nothing visible that couldn't have been changed, and there are other manufacturers who have used that style dust cap (I have some sitting on my shelf). I do not recall Eminence using that style of surround anywhere near that era either.

It could be a recone of some form or other, it could be ANY 15" (or 18") driver reconed to looks like something else. There were many manufacturers of speakers that supplied the industry back then. Without seeing the back, there's just no way to tell. I emphasize this because it's so easy to be misled by what something kinda looks like without considering all of the options. I reconed speakers for probably 30+ years and there's no way I can tell. My crystal ball also tells me an accurate guess is a no go.

Looking closer at it, I doubt it's JBL because of the cone depth to diameter ratio being a bit higher than I would expect.
 
#26
lowphatbass said:
Looks like a late 60's/early 70's. It probably sounds good but it won't take a beating like modern cabs typically will. It was probably designed to sound it's best with a 50ish watt tube head. I'd investigate for sure at that price. It may not be what your looking for but it could be a little gem in the right situation.
Click to expand...
I beg to differ; these are dynamite cabinets and will take all kinds of abuse. I have 2 of them that have been used on thousands of gigs since 1972 and don't rattle yet...at all. They came with a Coliseum 320 watt solid state head. This is a very nice sounding rig.
The speaker is another story; I don't know what that is but don't think it's original.
 
#28
The more I think about it, the likelihood is higher that it's either CTS, Jensen, or even possibly Oaktron (which was an OEM manufacturer that seemed to have supplied parts and speakers to the industry in a variety of ways.

If you can get a picture of the back of the driver, there may be a manufacturer's ID code that will clear things up.

If it's a cast basket, it's almost certainly Cerwin Vega... unless it happens to be JBL ;)

Heck, there's no way to tell if it's even a cast basket or stamped steel basket from the photo, therefore it's impossible to say if it's original.
 
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#29
Here is one I believe with the Eminence speaker in it.

sunn1-18cab-1-800.jpg
 
#30
Looking at the surround, it's a 1/2 over & 1/2 under roll.

CTS used exactly the same dust cap, I looked up recone parts and both the CTS and Eminence have close enough dimensions that the same shallower version cone and cap could be used as long as the bobbin height was adequate. That's why you can never assume that something is as stated without verifying. There are many ways to spin a "driver cat" so that it appears to be something it isn't. Especially when getting into recone parts, sometimes we have to take an available part and recone it so that it looks appropriate even though it's not original, when the original is not available or is damaged beyond repair.
 
#31
Kirk Bryant said:
First find out for sure the size of the speaker. They made both a 1x15 for the 200S and I believe a 1x18 as well for the 2000S. I think this is the 1x15 due to the space around the speaker and I've been looking for one of these for many years. They seldom come up as everyone wanted the 2x15 version. By the way the badge alone is worth about a hundred bucks to some people. I would pay that pricefor it (the cab) right now. Damn I want that cab for. My 200S. As that's what the bass player for the Kingsman (Louie Louie) was playing the first time I saw them in about 1964.
Click to expand...

BassShark said:
It's either that or a 155-S, hard to judge whether it's a 15" or 18" from the pic. Ca.'72 to '74-ish. The speaker's definitely original, I've owned many 1970's Sunns since 1975, that's what came in there...Eminence, they had the vented aluminum dust cap. The surround looks right to me based on memory, but it could've been reconed. The bad news is that those speakers SUCK and you'd want to swap it out anyway. The "M" stands for Magna, which were Sunn's premium speaker (actually OEM'd Cerwin Vegas) and those are decent speakers. The Eminence, though, are useless. The 15"s were only rated at 60 watts, can't remember what the 18" was supposed to handle.

The good news is that those '70s Sunn cabs are really great sounding bass cabs, that's what you'd be paying for.
Click to expand...

It's a 1X18, either a 118M or 118V, probably a '72 118V or a '73-'75 118M. It's 30" x 30" (to match up with the 350B amplifier box), all of the 115's were 24" x 24"; pretty obvious to those familiar with the two because the 15" driver took up a noticeably higher percentage of the baffle.
The "V" was Cerwin Vega loaded and the "M" had a "Sunn Magna" driver which was manufactured by the Hartzell speaker facility in western KY.

The "Sunn Transducer" drivers, as used in the 115S cabs could be CTS or Eminence, but those were never available as OEM in the 118 cabs.
CTS and Eminence and the other speaker manufacturers in that corner of KY sourced their parts from the same manufacturers, much the way that auto manufacturers in Detroit source their parts (seats, airbags, control modules, etc.) from the same manufacturers, much like the RV industry in the Elkhart/South Bend IN area, and many area specific industries do in the interest of capitalizing on the economy of scale afforded by supplier and/or experienced workforce logistics.

A speaker is far less complicated than an RV or automobile, so it's often difficult to tell a CTS from an Eminence from that era without the EIA code, the frames, dust covers, magnets, etc. are virtually identical/interchangeable. Also the line defining "who built what" with these products can be blurred by one or the other company actually contracting with their "competition" to manufacture high volume products.
 
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#36
old spice said:
I beg to differ; these are dynamite cabinets and will take all kinds of abuse. I have 2 of them that have been used on thousands of gigs since 1972 and don't rattle yet...at all. They came with a Coliseum 320 watt solid state head. This is a very nice sounding rig.
The speaker is another story; I don't know what that is but don't think it's original.
Click to expand...
I misidentified it as an earlier cab that may have came with one of the smaller tube heads, but it was the speaker I was referring to as not being able to handle the type of wattage that most can today. I have an old Sunn cab and know how well they are built....takes me 20 minutes just to remove the back panel on my 2x15 there's so many screws, that's with a cordless electric!
 
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