Sunn 190L Head

Mine is from 1972 or so the guy who sold it to me says. It's all tube, 80 W (depending on who you ask) w/ volume, bass, treble and presence controls (no master volume). It has a tremolo and reverb as well. You can get a footswitch for it to turn these on and off. It connects by two RCA inputs, which is weird. There's Sunn switches on ebay and you can also use some of Fender's footswitches.

There's two bright and two normal inputs both of which provide useful tones. It's capable of driving two cabs w/ a minimum impedance of four ohms.

Never sure what to give these old tube amps w/ no features in this category. I actually prefer my amps not too have master volumes and all that stupid modern junk so I'll go w/ and eight.

Oh, crap, this thing is awesome. Originally, I was running it either as a half stack or full stack w/ four by twelves. It sounded good but it didn't really have that heavy sound I associat w/ Sunn amps. Eventually, I got an Accoustic cab w/ two fifteen inch Peavey Black Widows and this thing absolutely slays now. I have a Bassman 100 that I run on as a fullstack and it's not as loud as this thing w/ just one 2x15 cab.

W/ my setup it plays pretty clean until the volume get to about five and then it starts breaking up nicely. By about eight, it starts to get a little sloppy but that's likely my cab as it is anything. Anway, it's crushingly loud at this point so it doesn't really matter. You can get this this really loud and it stays reasonably clean. You definitely need some pedals if you want some real dirt.

And it does sound great w/ overdrive or distortion in front of it. W/ a Rat, I get a real crunchy distortion which works great for fast parts. The bottom ends stays real tight and you don't lose anything. I also use and EHX Double Muff and it just sounds huge--tight enough for all but the very fastest parts and just thunderous for if you want to play something slow and doomy--think Sunn or even Khanate. W/ a regualar Big Muff you can really nail that Electric Wizard sound or even that Siamese Dream fuzz everyone's always after. This is just a great sounding amp for all kinds of stuff. I detune all the way to B and it's hard to find vintage amps that can hang through that but this does and sounds great.

My only problem is that the reverb is pretty weak. And by that, I mean you can't hear it hardly at all even when it's maxed out. I got the unit reworked too so it's not just broken. The tremelo actually sounds great w/ in a certain range but the whole scope of it isn't useful and it loses volume when you have the depth all the way up. I just generally wish it didn't have these options at all. Other than that: top notch.

When I first got it, it kept blowing fuses--or, actually, tripping its breaker. I took it to my tech and got it all worked out and now it works well. Really, w/ vintage amps like this, you gotta expect to have some work done on it from time to time.

I run mine now w/ only one eight ohm cabinet rather than two. That seems to help things last longer.

I run two stacks when I gig so I pretty much always have a backup. But this serves as a backup as well. Funny how that works.

Sunn does not exist. Any tech should be able to work on it though. If yours can't, get a new tech.

Like I said, I love this amp. I wish it didn't have the reverb and tremelo but I just leave those off.

I found this full stack on Ebay and when I received it it had terrible buzz. I replaced all caps, tubes and it sounds awesome. The reverb on Sunn was weak and this not exception. Has Marshall like distortion depending upon where I bias the tubes. Lots of power. Not sure how useful the mid-boost is but then I never use the bright switch on old fenders either.

I use it with a telecaster, Les Paul Custom, Strat 6 and 12 string and I think it sounds better with single coil guitars. I can get great blues sound from this amp biased at 48 ma with the 6550 tubes (volume on 5).

Since I repair amps as a hobby this is not a problem for me but Sunn is out of business. Any amp tech can work on these and most parts are available.

None

I like this amp alot. I purchased the head and two 4x10 cabs with it (all original) and re-tolexed, new cloth and electronics so it is like new and it sounds like a great vintage amp should. I've been playing over 40 yrs and collecting guitars and amps for this entire time. This is one of the best.

This head has a real old-style tube-sound. Although it has only one channel, it's still very useful when playing metal or hard-rock. I use it in combination with a Boss distortion pedal and I can do almost everything with it. I can make it sound like a bass-amp and also make it sound like a transistor-amp that you buy at a 7-11. The tone function is good. Not extremely... just good. If you want an amp to play only solos, don't buy this one. if you want a versatile amp for both rhythym and solo, it will do just fine. One feature I never use (might be a personal thing) is the contour. It might have been better if they left this out and put a distortion or a gain/level switch in its place. One other disadvantage is the weight. It's a quite heavy piece of work. Might have been a better amp for someone who plays a lot of clean, instead of a metal-freak.

I use it with a Yamaha Pacifica (not much, but hey....) and you can really hear that there is a rather nice set of tubes inside. The clean (and only) channel doesn't get distorted at high volumes, at least not as high as I could stand. This amp would be very good when playing something dark, slow or maybe even heavy. Like Dimmu Borgir, Theatre Of Tragedy and everything slow and grieving.

I have used this amp on 4 gigs now and it never failed me. The only thing you have to watch out for, is when you carry the amp in and let it heat up, you don't use it to soon. Might have been something else, but it looked like it's a little sensitive to cold.

I bought this amp second handed, so I don't now how the Sunn service is, and since it's a qutie old amp I really can't tell you anything about the service. Sorry guys.... maybe some other user ?

if anyone can give me more information about this amp, please send an e-mail to me with whatever you want to share. I would also like to know how much other people paid (or would pay) for an amp like this.