Sunn 200S

I have owned this Sunn 200S cabinet since 1978. It was purchased used @ Leo's in Oakland, Cal. It was built in 1969. It has the "issue" grey basket D-140f's reconed in 1978 as K-140's. This is a legendary cabinet used by the likes of Jack Cassady, John Entwistle
and Felix Pappalardi. The Rolling Stones used 'em as monitors at Altamont Speedway. Brother Berry Oakley used D-140's as did Phil Lesh. IMHO one of the best all-round bass cabinets ever made. Cabinet has 2 15" JBL D-140f's mounted vertically with a center port.
It is referred to as a "bass reflex" cabinet. I gave one to my guitarist who loaded in 2 D-130f's and it is the finest guitar cabinet I've ever heard. Loud, yep, sparkling highs, yep, piecing to the point that other guitarists demanded to know how many 10" speakers are in it!!

Flat response from 40 Hz to 'bout 4 Khz with the issue JBL D-140f's.
With the D-130f's installed more like 50 Hz to 'bout 15 Khz. Hi-Fi sound, nearly. Hard to go wrong with JBL D-140s or D-130s!!
As a bass bin projection to 30 yards easily. One of these will kick the stuffing outta the over-rated MAGNAVOX SVT 8 x 10" which BTW is a DEAD BOX! Approximately 130 Db of SPL @ 150 watts R.M.S. at 10 feet.

I have played though Sunn gear since 1974...listen carefully: NO FAILURES EVER, EVER!!!

Hats off to Beautiful Becky at the Tualatin, Oregon Sunn Plantation for supplying me with all schematics which BTW are drawn out the Mil-Spec and HP WAY. All bought used, no warranty.

I have played bass for 37 years. Since you asked, here's my list of currently owned equipment and yes it is all operational. Hey does this cabinet make me look fat??

1. SUNN COLISEUM BASS AMPLIFIER, 1973

2. SUNN COLISEUM LEAD AMPLIFIER, 1975

3. SUNN MODEL T AMPLIFIER, 1973

4. SUNN CONCERT BASS AMPLIFIER, 1973

5. SUNN 200S SPEAKER CABINET WITH 2 JBL K140's, 1969

6. SUNN 215S SPEAKER CABINET WITH 2 JBL K140's, 1973

7. SUNN 215S SPEAKER CABINET WITH 2 JBL K140's, 1973

8. SWR GOLIATH III SPEAKER CABINET WITH 4 P.A.S., 2006

9. SWR 410T SPEAKER CABINET WITH 4 EMINENCE, 2005

10. FENDER BXR SPEAKER CABINET WITH 2x10, 1x18 EMINENCE, 2000

11. FENDER PRECISION BASS, 1967 WITH MAPLE FRETBOARD

12. FENDER GEDDY LEE JAZZ BASS, 2006

13. FENDER STRATOCASTER, 2006

14. GIBSON LES PAUL JUNIOR, 1957 (LEND-LEASE) TO ARIZONA BROTHER

15. YAMAHA CLASSIC GUITAR, 1980

16. ACOUSTIC 370 AMPLIFIER, 1974

17. ACOUSTIC 301HC CABINET, 1974

18. FENDER JAZZ BASS, MIM, 2002

19. ACOUSTIC 301HB CABINET, 1973

20. ACOUSTIC 450 AMPLIFIER, 1975

21. FENDER JAZZ BASS, CUSTOM SHOP, 1966

22. ACOUSTIC 140 AMPLIFIER, 1974

23. ACOUSTIC 406 WIDE CABINET, WITH 2 JBL K-140'S 1978

Basic and fantastic

really amazing power. I run 2 yamaha twin 15 cabs wired in series parallel with 4 emminence 150rms speakers. Usually I play a p-bass but for drive I run an Aria Pro II avante. Love the tonal range and the balls. I frequently use a strat with it and the tube distortion is great. I also have a marshall JCM 2000, an accoustic 470 with 2 15 altecs and yamaha rigs. The sunn holds it's own and then some.

True story. I was playing in Selkirk Manitoba and was really bushed at the end of the night. I put the head on the roof of my pickup while I loaded the speakers in the back. I forgot and headed off down the road. As I accelerated it slid off at qabout 20 miles an hour onto an icy road. I was sure it was hooped and was already devastated, but when I got home and plugged it in, there was absolutley nothing wrong with it. That was in 1978 and tonight I just spent the night playing it for 7 hours without any service, tube changes or capacitor replacement. (march 2007)The point is I've owned it since new and it has never needed service, That is the best customer support I've ever seen.

As above. Best I've owned, Dual showmen, bandmasters, bassman, a standell and an ampeg have come and gone while I've owned thie amp but I've never even thought of this amp going anywhere in close to 40 years.

Typical Sunn 200s. All of the features have been listed below already.

Here's the part where I'm kinda iffy. I really WANTED to like this amp. I'm a huge Sunn fan (I own a Sceptre, and two 2x15 cabs), but this amp just seems kind of bland compared to the Sceptre. Kind of bland like an SWR, only tube. I use a Rickenbacker 4003 in stereo, with the neck pickup going to the 200s, and the bridge pickup going to the Sceptre. While the Sceptre has a very pleasing (actually, downright orgasmic) overdrive, the 200s has this tinny farty distortion (when using either guitar OR bass) reminiscent of Mel Schacher of Grand Funk Railroad. Right now, it really only adds rumble to my rig. I even put a solid state rectumfrier in to boost the wattage a bit, which helped, but not by much. It does sound GREAT when played cleanly with a strat, though.

When I first got it, it had just a 2-prong cord, and shocked me like you wouldn't believe. That got fixed REALLY quickly. Since then, I haven't had any real issues.

What customer service?

I wanted to like it, I really did. But it just doesn't sound very good pushed. It's like it has too much bottom end, and not enough headroom. Maybe I'd be happier with a 2000s.

The 200S head had just the basics,.... Volume, treble and bass. hi / low boost. A lot of range for just two tone knobs. No need for all that extra crap. Cabnets: Each head powered 2 legendary JBL D-140's. The B-52 of speakers. For awhile I went through a short lived phase where I used an Electric Mistress flanger and a tape loop Echo-Plex for a cool spacey sound.

Back in the day ('70s) I ran a stereo 4001 Rickenbacker through two 200S amps. You can hardly put the sound in to words! Luxurious, deep, smooth, rich bass with just the right amount of twangy treble from the other one. I was a rock and blues guy. Volume rarely above 6.5. Bass and treble about 5 with low and hi gain in the up position. If volume went above 8, distortion could rear it's ugly head.

Bullet proof! It's an all terrain vehicle. I've played outdoor festivals where the dust was terrible. Countless cups of this or that have spilled on it. It's been left over night in the back of a truck and been rained on. The power has been left on over night many times. Many gigs lakeside in very humid conditions. No problems ever! Yea, I'd say it's damn reliable.

What am I going to do? Take it to Fender? Come on! If I ever need it repaired, Seattle has lots of guys who would love to get their hands on this baby. Some would do it for free!

I purchased my Sunn amps used just out of HS ($150 & $350) and the next ten years were some of my fondest memories ever. Marriage and kids forced me to put the gear aside for 25 years. Now the kids are in college and I've started pulling some of the stuff out of mothballs. (I could never force myself to get rid of it earlier just in case the band....) Well, anyways, the pots were a little scratchy but that's it. Still sounds great. I put one of the amps on Craig?s list for $250 and within 15 minutes I had six calls. Big mistake! One guy offered me $300 for just the head. I should have listed it for a lot more than $250. I won't make that mistake again. I got $205 for the Electric Mistress and $650 for the Echo-Plex!

I believe the amp was made in 1969. It has an (r) under the sunn logo. That means something to people who know sunn. Umm not a lot of opitions but you use all of them. There is only volume, bass, trebele, with high and low boost switches. I used this amp gigging for a few shows. It was good enough for the venues I played... prolly would have been fine if they didnt have a PA . It is a tubed amp, d'uh. It is a bass amp, I used it for guitar, had a better clean sound than my vox, or any stupid fender I have owned.

I use a 1965 fender mustang. Humbucker in the bridge, and an open neck pick up hole. When I used it I was doing mainly clean ebow work, but with my fuzzface I could get some of the nastiest sounding distortion ever. The tube compliments were old GE rectifier and the other tube, the 12ax7 was a long plate mullard, power tubes crappy sovteks... People say the plate voltage is a little too high for 6550a but I had no probs. The amp began "tube break up" at around 8, which is pretty f'ing loud.

Never serviced the tubes, but I would have liked to have changed out the sovteks, but I had no problems. I would say I put about 60+ hours on it, no problems. I don't think an old amp like this wouldn't have problems sometime in its life, but I didn't have any. I giged with a back up, a beta lead, probably didn't have to though.

Sunn is gone. Fender bought them and ruined the name in my humble opinion. The re-issue model-t's are kind of lame if you have heard a real one. Why do people pay 1300$+ for them on ebay... retreds.... Umm im pretty sure if like my beta lead that all sunn amps had a lifetime warranty.. that is saying something. The amp it self is all Point to point wiring, any none full of crap tech should be able to fix it, if not you probably shouldn't take your equipment to them.

I have been playing long enough to say the amp matter more than the guitar... if that means anything.. I own a lot of other sunn gear, can't get enough of it. Beta-lead, and Coli-lead, Vox cambridge , some fender junk I loaned out too. Umm if it was lost or stolen, I would have liked to have gotten another one, but this amp went the way of the buffalo. I traded it because I needed more volume, and I am not a bass player, I figured someone else could apperciate the amp more than me. If you see one cheap buy it.. If a friend has one and doesnt want it BUY IT, they are becoming collectors vintage equipment now, because people finally got over the sunn stigma... why was there ever one.

1969 this amp is pretty freakinsimpe. It has a power, standby, and a polarity switch and 3 knobs for bass and treble and all that jazz. When i hook in my boss compression pedal with my schecter this thing will groove into the night. Who needs feaures when you can runn the sun through an effects box anyway?

Who needs to dial 911 when you can just walk outside and play open E and have the neighbors do it for you? I have EMG active pickups on a schecter custom diamond series 4. I play jazz, funk, alot of Greatful Dead stuff, and a bunch of other jam band styles. This amp eats up everything i play and spits it out warm, clean and funky. I try to keep the settings below 7 or else i wind up with super distortion. Overall the classic tube sound of the 200s is untouchable. I dont think i would ever buy a solid state amp over a tube.

This thing is a beast. Its fallen out of the back of my explorer at a gig and played fine, luckily the tubes were straight. Other than that this thing has groved alomost everyday for at least 5 hours with no problem and thats sayin alot for a 30yr old amp.

Ive never tried to contact Sunn. But i do know my local family owned music shop, "Ponier", does a great job with fixing any amp, particularly vintage equipment.

This amp was damn worth it. I would pay twice what i paid for it. If somone stole it i would find them and use them for a ground wire for my Sunn. I prefer this amp over any ampeg, aguilar, gibson, or fender. It rips. I wish i had another one because then i could dual purpose these amps and have two to gig with and 2 to work out with-friggn things are heavy!

1969 Sunn 200S Head. I bought it used (it's a looker) for $300.00. It had been serviced with new filters and good HD solid-state rectification. Whoever did the work knew what he was doing. The SS rectifier bumps the output to 90W RMS. The transformers are original and are still too big at 90W RMS. When I got the 200S it had a pair of crappy Chinese 6550's. But it did still have the Mullard 12AX7. I replaced the driver/phase inverter tube with a NOS GE 6AN8 and I replaced the crappy Chinese 6550's with a pair of Svetlana KT88's. I downloaded the schematic from the Unofficial Sunn Site, and used the info contained therein to bias the output tubes. What I did was to set the grid bias voltage per the schematic, and then vary it while observing the output tubes in a totally dark room. I set the bias just to where the plates don't glow. Seems to work OK. Who needs features? This 200S is hi-fi and I can turn it up to eight, with the treble on four and the bass on seven and both boost switches off; through a 4X10 it is really loud and clean. Plenty of volume for most clubs. The key is the properly-biased KT-88's. The sound is astonishing.

I have, on occasion, used this 200S head for upright bass. Spectacular sound, but bad feedback voodoo from conventional speaker (Ampeg BA-115 works GREAT for uprtight).

This amp really exposes the true sound of the bass instrument being played. Since it has no compression, some basses sound uneven. On the other hand, it's no big deal to get Chris Squire or John Entwhistle tone. It's a bass amp, the very best of its day, and 35 years later it sings true. The input stage was so conservatively designed (no bypass coupling in the first stage) you can literally use an outboard preamp between the bass and the amp. The sound just jumps out of the amp, and makes the whole band sound very cool.

This soldier just keeps playing. I cross my fingers and hope. Never a problem yet.

n/a

Forget the Ampeg tube stuff. It's too expensive. If you need more power maybe get your girlfriend's daddy to buy a really big PA. There is nothing like real all-tube bass. The 200S is pretty simple to modify to solid-state rectification and the transformers are plenty beefy to handle the superlative KT-88 output tubes. This amp is a classic, and the fact that it is a bass amp is truly sweet. I'm going to buy another one right now.

Ah, simplicity is bliss, and the guys at Sunn must of thought the same. You have two inputs, the first is normal and the second is a little dull but I still use it sometimes for my drum machine. You have a lo and hi boost switches which are helpful at times, and for the knobs you've got volume, treble, and bass. Then after that there's a standby switch, polarity switch, and of course power. In the back is a fuse and a send and return 1/4" inputs and a level knob for them. Even though this amp has little controls you can get different tones for different styles easy all the controls are sensitive and then you can switch it up with your bass or guitar controls and on top of that effects if you want.

What can I say about the sound? It's awesome! It's a big classic tube amp. I'm not quite sure how loud it is I run it with a 215S cab and lets say it shakes the place immensely, supposedly it only puts out 160 watts, but its definitely more. When I'm in the house I never have it over 1 1/2 in volume this thing is a beast. When you get it in the upper stages about above 6 or 7 you start getting the typical tube distortion but its nothing to worry about because if you turn it up that much you must be deaf or playing a BIG gig. But overall the distortion you get isnt bad at all, and the sound out of the whole thing is just superb. I always wanted an old Ampeg SVT, but I found this baby and got it for a steal with the cab. If somebody took this I'd hunt them down thats how much I love it.

So far I've had no problems with my baby. I haven't blown any tubes, but I believe someone may have because I have 6550s in mine and its supposed to have KT88s but oh well. This thing is a workhorse and has never done me wrong. It'll follow me till the end.

Not much you can say about this area Sunn was bought out by Fender a couple years ago I think in 98 or so. They kept the Sunn name for a while and now its just great Sunn designs with Fender over where Sunn should be. And if Sunn was still around I think my warranty would be up since my head is from the early 70s.

For what I got this at and how well it plays I got a deal of a lifetime. I'm a younger player, but have major appreciation for old gear. You can never go wrong with a classic tube amp especially this one. It was the best amp back in its day and its a pretty damn good one in my heart. The fatness you get of this tank is literally music to your ears. You can never go wrong with a Sunn. If you think you can't afford a great sounding amp don't give up somewhere out there there's an amp for you.

This is a 60s Sunn 200s tube bass amp. It doesn't have much in the line of features but it doesn't need it. The second you plug into
this amp it's like teletubby funtime. It's got treble, bass and volume knobs as well as a high and low boost switch. This thing can give you ear piercing treble or stomach rupturing bass. Meanwhile sounding amazing everywhere in between. Yes, the features are limited but if you need some big huge equalizer there's something wrong with you.

The sound is amazing. Perfect tone. I play it with a 1977 black on black rickenbacker 4001. I have not plugged it into my Ampeg 4x10 but on a generic little 2x10 it sounds amazing so I can only assume that it will get even better when plugged into a better cabinet.

Like I said, this can do treble to heavy heavy bass. I haven't plugged a guitar into it but I hear it's great for that as well.

It's 40 years old and plays perfectly. What more could I ask for.
There are some knowledgeable vintage amp techs in town so I'm not worried about being able to get it fixed. I hear Sunn tubes are quite expensive but for the sound this thing puts out it's completely worth it. I would gig with this without a backup in a second.

I doubt I'll be able to get in touch with anyone from Sunn.
However, locally I can get this thing fixed so I'm not worried.

If this were lost or stolen I don't know what I'd do.
I'd have to track another one down or track the person down and
er..well..nevermind about that.
Comparied to the Mesa/boogie 400 I had this thing walks circles
around it. I'm not the best bass player in the world but you
might be fooled into thinking I am after hearing this thing.

As you've been reading...very basic but what more do you really need? On-Off-Standby-Ground switches, 1 volume control, 1 bass control, 1 treble control, 1 Hi-Switch, 1 Lo-Switch. 2 speaker outputs, 1 -8 ohm, 1 - 4 ohm.
If you are the type of bass player I am (blues, R&B, R&R), tone is what matters, not EQ slides and a bunch of other junk. If you have to have a lot of noises on your amp, don't ruin this wonderful sounding amp. I've recently had a '68 200s rebuilt my the master of all things Sunn (if you want his email address or web-site, drop me a line)and it is uterly wonderful. Felix Pappalardi, the Cream producer and bass player for Mountain sold me on Sunn amps & speaker cabinets when I saw them in 1969. I run mine through the 2-15 cabinet that was sold with the 200s. Miine is loaded with one vintage D-140F and one vintage D-130F. It rocks!
The head is heavy so it's not for wimps.

The 200s is a TONE MONSTER!

Mine is recently rebuilt (new transformer that was missing, a few new, O/S caps) so it is good for another 30-40 years. I do not worry about carrying a back-up although I do have a Sunn 2000s being put back to gether by my Sunn Amp Wizard.

It's vintage, but I do have my master amp Doctor who breaths Sunn.

I've been playing of and on for more than 30 years. I had one in the 60's and never forgave myself for selling it. I am once again in possession of a Sunn 200s and will not be without one while I am still breathing. If yo are a bass player, you could not do any better.
Some "tube amp snobs" (primarily Ampeg guys) don't like the old stero-console Dynaco transfers but man, what tone, what sound and plenty of volumn!