According to their own history page, The Sundholms only owned the company for seven years. They sold to Hartzell Manufacturing in 1972. The CEO died in a plane crash five years later, and his brother took over the company and apparently never had a good handle on the pro audio industry (that's literally what the official history says!) so he sold it to Fender seven years after that.
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Return of Sunn?
- Thread starter FirewalZ
- Start date
Bitchin looking for sure, but I rrrrrrealy don't understand the 65W tube and 100W SS amplification.
I knew I used the wrong emoji... I was really only joking. I don't think Conrad had anything to do with anything branded "Sunn" since '72. However, I do think, if it were necessary, that a company could have a product launch and marketing plan on 'standby' waiting for a specific event, like the passing of someone who had some contractual exclusivity. Again, I don't think this is what happened here... I was just interested in the plausibly(?) causal sequence of events.
The 8/1 launch date was planned before Conrad’s passing. They had a countdown on their page starting sometime in June with teasers for the 100S/200S chassis posted around that time
I’ve only been following the launch news in passing, the old Sunn stuff never really interested me, but from what I’ve gathered it’s a new entity (mission engineering apparently) licensing the brand name from fender. There are plans for a limited run model T reissue in addition to the current offerings, but given the price of doing small runs of these amps and the prices on the amps offered already I would have to imagine they’re going to be up there. $3200 for a 100S or 200S is not going to be a volume item. The betas might be.
Yeah. 100w is puzzling. Hilbish offers a Beta in 200w ($1,200 without sleeve or $1,500 with) and 700w ($1,300 without sleeve or $1,800 with) which I think seems reasonable in terms of wattage, though certainly boutique pricing given what else is available in the 700w class D world.
Edit - I’d assume the Hilbish 200w is aimed at guitarists and 700w at bassists. 100w “Beta Bass” just seems like a studio tool or stage volume when you have FOH support for most bass application I can think of.
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people knock the 65w tube but with the 2x15 cab it has some magic. Some sort of acoustic magic that makes it REALLY loud.
That's why it was puzzling to me, as in my world, a 100w amp makes a good door stop.
Yeah, I can remember using that old 200s with a pair of 15s (Ampeg B25 cab), and never had any issues "cutting through the mix" as the saying goes. I don't remember ever having to push it either.
Very cool!
Can't imagine a 100-watt Beta Bass head weighing 26-lbs. is going to get a lot of demand though. Of course, it would perfectly match my 'Beta 202B" 212-cab, which is rated at 100-watts handling power. I stopped using it because if farted out too easily with my new amp back in ~2008 or so.
So…Fender is bankrolling this. Had they done these models over 20 years ago instead of all that ersatz stuff that they cranked out then, I would have been excited…then. Their timing now just seems a little weird. As I mentioned in the other thread, there once was a retro vintage hipness quotient for the gear long ago, supported by the emerging stoner/desert/doom movement. But now? I’m not so sure. I’ve owned and sold tons of the original stuff(up through the black/silver face solid state era), there’s plenty of it still around and functioning, at lesser prices than what they’re asking for this line. I just don’t see the demand.
Boris and SunnO))) have been doing it for years with the original gear, and Greta Van Fleet, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and the tour bassist for the Black Keys have had 2000s rigs on the road more recently.
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Looks cool to me..... Sorry you don't approve!Cool! Someone with lots of money to burn.
That’s roughly a common asking price for the two versions of the original ones on Reverb. But asking and getting are two different amounts, as you surely know.
I ha no experience with Sunn until just a couple months ago. I recorded at Robby Krigger's studio and they have Jerry Scheff's Sunn 200S with 215 cab that he used in the later Vegas years with Elvis. That rig sounded amazing.
Essentially, the design of the head was based on linear Dynaco hifi amplification, more exacting and purposed differently than musical instrument amplification of the time. Add to that the use of KT-88(later 6550)power tubes, which I don’t think was common at the time. The cabs were unique as well; a proprietary, unusual design with angled port channels(but not a “folded horn” as it’s sometimes called, erroneously). Loaded with a pair of JBL D-140’s, which could more than handle the head’s peak output.
Yet, why is it that there are so many threads where someone complains that any amps on stage are too loud? I’m personally not down with the IEM thing, it’s too antiseptic and prophylactic for me, but my first real amp was a Sunn Sorado, a budget version of the 200s, then I moved to the real thing. I never had a problem keeping up with a drummer, let alone 20-50 watt guitar amps. If there was PA support(not common then), that would be gravy.
The current consensus here is that no guitarist should be working with more than 30 watts or so, but I don’t know how you could enforce that.
Sorry if I came across as condescending; it was not to be meant that way. I loved the old sunn (o))) gear from those days.
I learned the hard way to never put myself in a spot with too little power, an amp that was straining and breaking up trying to keep up on loud stages in my day.
The experienced grownups in the room know that with a big amp, you can match levels as needed without bowling over everything around you. I'm a charter member of the Big Amp Turned Up to 3 Club, where it's calm, cool, and collected and working well within it's design limits.
You don't want a little amp whipped half to death just to get through a job, which is why I've got little use for a 100w amp, especially as with five-string, the occasional low C's and D's require more amp and more speaker.
