How do these stack up? SUNN content!!!

The 1970s called and wants its PA back. Don't waste your money.

 

Could be usable as a practice PA for a garage band; tell 'em you'll take it all off their hands for $50, and if they balk, say you'll cut 'em a break and only charge 'em $40

 

i have an older set of Sunns and they sound and work great! I don't really care what name is on the front as i'm not a gear snob. The bottom line to me is quality of sound in my band and everyone is very happy with our sound!

 

Yeah, there are times when seeking out and using vintage gear is desirable. PA gear is almost always one of those times when it's not.

 

agreed.. I've used a modified set of Peavey SP2 as FOH for yrs...
They have been bi-amped (stock Peavey crossovers removed), Selenium 1" horns replacing the stock horns, and I upgraded the stock 15" BW's with the TOTL BW's available at the time, and of course - appropriately powered by QSC amps!

They look like square boxes, but sound absolutely awesome!

 

So basically after gutting them and replacing all the internal components you now have something that doesn't sound bad. This is a little different from using old PA gear with original parts.

 

What kind of drivers? some Sunns had jbls,lansings altecs,some pawnshop cab drivers are somethimes changed out so beware.

 

Yep... the originals - along with SP4's, 6's, and so on, weren't bad - especially for the price point.
Lots of new stuff over the last 10 yrs tho'...

 

i'm trying to think of any PA stuff that has a vintage value, and all i can come up with are certain mics, mic pres and compressors. maybe certain EQs.

 

I had some 70s sunn PA cabs and some that I bought in the early 90s that were post fender I believe. While they all sounded OK everything I own now sounds way better. Spend some money on some decent powered speakers [Yamaha ,QSC,EV, JBL etc.] and you will be better off.

 

I think it really comes down to having two completely different goals between PA gear and instruments and amps. With the latter, players are often looking for a certain tonal colorization or vibe that may only be found with certain types of older gear. With the former, the goal is almost always as much transparency as possible. Since modern PA gear is lighter, smaller, louder, more efficient, and usually just sounds better (especially at the lower- and mid-price points), it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to go chasing down PA mains from yesteryear. Why fuss with some ancient folded horn subs that require a forklift to move and a rack full of QSC Model 1200s when a pair of PRX718XLFs will get 'er done with probably much superior sound quality?

Of course, there are exceptions, such as the mics and compressors that you mentioned.

 

Just to clear up some misinformation...

I don't understand this term "post Fender"; technically we may be in Sunn's 'post Fender' era right now, seeing as how Fender purchased the brand name(only)in the late 80's, and applied it to garage/club band level PA and lighting gear(but no MI amps). Eventually this equipment was branded Fender/Sunn, and the 'Sunn' part was eventually phased out. Quality-wise, this stuff was on a par with Peavey and the like. I would say that the cabs you found in the pawn shop were late 80's, and would only be a step up from Crate or Bullfrog. In the late 90's Fender presented a line of guitar and bass amps under the Sunn name(after the brand was dormant for quite some time)that had a passing cosmetic resemblance only to the 'classic' amps of the mid/late 60's/early 70's(as built by original owners the Sundholm brothers, or the company they sold out to, Hartzell). However, design-wise, and technically, these millennial amps had nothing to do with the Woodstock/Nixon administration era gear; while Fender did issue a 'Model T' it was a far cry from either of the two original 70's generations, different power tubes, different front end, etc. After a few short years, Fender quietly canned the line, rebranding the SVT-like 300-T tube bass amp as Fender. Now, I don't know if currently FMIC is just sitting on the 'Sunn' name to keep it off the market(as they will probably never utilize it again), so let's just say it's now the post-Sunn era

Yes! The earliest Sundholm built PA, bass, and guitar cabs incorporated JBL components, sometimes Altecs as special orders, in the late 60's. Not only was the company forward thinking in building true bass amps, but they also strived to break free of the 'column' concept of PA with the Coliseum line, used by everybody from the Beach Boys to The Who and Jimi Hendrix. When Hartzell acquired the company in the early 70's, they kept the innovations going for a while, but then drastically cut corners, cheapening the brand name on into the mid 80's. In the pic below, if you were to go to a circa '68 Hendrix show(in the US), this would have been the PA...


Maybe a couple more pairs of speakers and some slave amps, but this was the state of the art(along with Altec VOT's)at the time.

 

I have a pair of custom designed Sunn PA cabinets that were made for a church in the early 1980s. I guess Sunn used to do that sort of thing back then. The church had 4 cabinets made. I bought 2 and they were not cheap and were considered high end gear at the time. They have 2 12" speakers, a horn, and a tweeter in each cabinet. I bought them in the early 1980s and we used them for mid range cabinets for about 7 years. I replaced the original speakers with EV 12s a long time ago. I would unload the pair cheap just to get them out of my garage. The speakers are worth more than the cabinets.

 

yep; it was an attempt at an "ampeg-like" bass line and even a vaguely "marshall-like" guitar line, more "hard rock" niches that fender had never really succeeded in filling over the years.

the bass amps were interesting, a 300w tube head and a massive (and heavy) 1200w mono 2-rack space solid state rack head; unfortunately, they were both saddled with a weirdly complicated preamp section that had active EQ knobs, pre-gain drive controls, a crazy dual-band compression circuit and a graphic EQ, all of which ended up just sounding kind of "congested" and "in the way".

every time i tried one of these i kept thinking how much better it would have sounded to just run my sansamp pedal into the effects return and bypass all that mess.