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Sunn Sorado Amp??~??

I

Impulsee

Nov 25, 2002
420
2
40
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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#1
So get this. I was thinking of buying a brand new amp svt-3pro and an ampeg 4x10 cab and 1X15 cab. It was gonna run me about 1700$. Well my friend has a 1973-1974 (maybe) 4X12 sunn amp with a sunn sorado head. He use to play guitar with it, but he dident liek the sound. Well the other day i was online, and I discovered, it was a BASS AMP!!~!! so my friend used my jazz bass and he said it was sweet and that i should just buy a boss noise gate to kill the hum, and a boss bass equilizer so i coudl mess with the tone more. What do you guys think??~?? are these sunn sorados good?~?? i could pretty much have it for free...or at least use it :). would i be better off to spend 1700$ on ampeg, or 150$ on 2 new pedals to make the sunn sound good??~??

- w00t
 
#4
man i have a sunn 200s which is 60 watts. but its all tube so its more like 460watts. if you wanna get a good bass sound i suggest purchasing a compressor and a reverb unit or a preamp. i have done this and none of my friends 400 watt solid state rigs can compare with mine it also makes the amp become a great guitar amp. go for tone not power. 60 watts is plenty but if you wanna drop some mad g's check out Orange's 200 watt all tube bass amp. the thing is so powerful you could probably use it to fight of the entire communist chinese army. but yea go for the sunn. i mean hell that amp will probably be worth 20 grand in 10 years anyway cuz they havent made em for 40 years
 
#5
I have a Sunn Sorado which I'm currently selling on eBay because I never use it. To make it sound good, I turn it up. :)

Mine doesn't hum by the way, that doesn't sound like something I'd buy unless I planned on having it repaired. But if the one you are looking at is free, the price is certainly quite good!
 
#6
I go along with most of what's been said above. Simply FINDING old Sunn tube amps means that you have an Angel sitting on your shoulder. If you take a few $$$'s and fix up the old caps and tubes that may be in need of some TLC after years of sitting in a musty garage or basement, you're quite likely to find that SUNN tube powered bass amps still exhibit sonic qualities that few other amps can touch. For more info on Sunn feel free to stop by my site and visit the Sunn Shack. The more ya' know, the more you'll want one. :^>)

Invalid Link Removed
 
#7
BrOwNsOuNd said:
man i have a sunn 200s which is 60 watts. but its all tube so its more like 460watts. if you wanna get a good bass sound i suggest purchasing a compressor and a reverb unit or a preamp. i have done this and none of my friends 400 watt solid state rigs can compare with mine it also makes the amp become a great guitar amp. go for tone not power. 60 watts is plenty but if you wanna drop some mad g's check out Orange's 200 watt all tube bass amp. the thing is so powerful you could probably use it to fight of the entire communist chinese army. but yea go for the sunn. i mean hell that amp will probably be worth 20 grand in 10 years anyway cuz they havent made em for 40 years
Click to expand...

A watt is a watt is a watt. Doesn't make any difference if the signal is amplified with a tube or a transistor. Tubes have richer harmonic qualities, more "musical" but transistors are way more efficient when it comes to making power.
Reeves amplification ( Invalid Link Removed ) is working on an all tube 200 watt bass amp prototype right now handbuilt in the US, that will be an absolute power house and a tone machine and priced very competively.
If old tube Sunn's are worth 20 grand in 10 years, I will be the happiest person alive.
You don't need pedals to make a vintage Sunn sound "good"! If it hums - it's busted. They are easy and relatively inexpensive to fix, any competent tube tech, guitar tech or hi-fi tech, should be able to fix you up.
Well worth your time and money, Sunns are a HUGE chapter in rock 'n' roll history, and they are getting more rare all the time.
 
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#8
edbass said:
You don't need pedals to make a vintage Sunn sound "good"! If it hums - it's busted. They are easy and relatively inexpensive to fix, any competent tube tech, guitar tech or hi-fi tech, should be able to fix you up.
Well worth your time and money, Sunns are a HUGE chapter in rock 'n' roll history, and they are getting more rare all the time.
Click to expand...

I think I might like this guy! :^>)
 
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#9
wow several years down the line and i look back at my ingnorant viewpoints on tube amps. ive come a long way in the world of audio pioneering and i can still say that i have my sunn. Call me crazy but i paid 700 bucks for it on ebay. Thats what you get when you let your girlfriend do auctioning for you, guess she thought i wanted it that bad. Honestly now im glad i paid way to much because i hardly ever see or hear about them anymore. I work in a studio now and having a class a bass amp is a sweet sweet thing. Im running a tone tubby 15 through a custom sealed cabinet along with a 4" mid driver and a tweeter. I purchased an ART prochannel rack unit not to long ago which is tubed on everything- compressor, preamp, eq. kinda gimmicky to have a tube compressor but what the hell. These amps are so easy to fix that even I myself know how to replace everything under its carriage. I would still reccommend a sunn 200s or sorado to anyone searching for an unbeatable recording amp. It has some sweet ass lows with a 5 string and silky highs on a 6 string. If you record dont ever let yourself pass up one of these if you spot it for cheap. You can fix them for cheap and have an amp that you could only have custom built today and wind up spending a ton of money on. Big ups to sunn amps they are indefinatly an essence to rock and roll history.
 
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#10
I bought a Sunn Sonaro for $150 on ebay a couple months ago. Basically a Sorado or 200s except with EL34s instead of 6550s. It doesn't have a head case, and it sounded bad, but it was very simple to fix (rather, to have fixed--cap job, new/correct power tubes) and now for pure beauty of sound it beats everything out there that I've tried. If I could just find the right cabinet/speaker to take advantage of the 40 or 50 watts it puts out...it just gets lost into a Bergantino HT115. I did buy a "professionally" chopped Sunn cab (2x15 converted to 1x15), but when I got it the driver had busted out of the cabinet and torn everything up, and it was a JBL M31 instead of a D140 like the ad said...

Sunns are a little addictive!
 
#11
THREAD NECROMANCY.

With that said, for the Sonaro, the Sunn 200s cabinet would probably do excellently. Or maybe an old style 4x12, depending on your target tone. And yeah, a JBL would suit it nicely. I'm in the process of preparing for a 2000s cab build to run with my Fender Bassman 300, and I'm sure it will be ungodly loud.
 
#12
throbbinnut said:
It's only a 50 Watt head, so it ain't gonna be loud. Also, a noise gate ain't gonna fix the hum. The amp needs service.

It's worth about $150 or so, and you probably won't like it, but I love that sort of thing and would go for it if it were me.

Just letting you know what you're in for.

Chris
Click to expand...

Aint gonna be loud huh? I grew up using one of these with the matching 2-15 cab and lemme tell you something - it's was WAAAAY beyond loud!
 
#13
D.M.N. said:
With that said, for the Sonaro, the Sunn 200s cabinet would probably do excellently. Or maybe an old style 4x12, depending on your target tone. And yeah, a JBL would suit it nicely. I'm in the process of preparing for a 2000s cab build to run with my Fender Bassman 300, and I'm sure it will be ungodly loud.
Click to expand...

I also have a V4B, so I've been thinking about a 4x12. But there's a mint Sunn 2x15 cab sitting in the guitar shop downtown and it keeps calling to me. It's the one that went with the Sorado, not the 200S, though, so it has the Sunn drivers instead of the JBLs. Still, it sounds incredibly nice.
 
#15
D.M.N. said:
Nice, how do you like the 4x12? I was tempted to build a Marshall style 412 with bass drivers, but was lured away by the call of 15s. I don't really have any experience with twelves, played a couple 12 combos, but they seem like they're kind of optimal for a vintage tone.
Click to expand...

I don't actually have the 4x12 cab that goes with the V4, just the amp itself. I gather that 4 12s are awesome with this head, but my experience so far has only been with 15s. And sweet it is!
 
#16
I'd recommend grabbing the Sunn Sorado... Its basically a 200S anyway. Conservatively rated at 60 watts RMS, and about 120 peak. The 200S was designed for KT88s which are available again (JJs are pretty decent). But the 6550s (if that's what it originally came with) are great too.

My 200S was the biggest cleanest sound I've ever heard for bass! It competed well (with a "half TL606Q" - 2x15 cab) against two guitarists with 100 watt Marshall stacks each... 'Nuff said!

This head

200Sfr.gif


and this cab

My2x15-1.jpg
 
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