Sunn Sceptre

First of all, I must say that I'll try to do my best with my broken english...lol
Got my Sceptre days ago from the States and I fell in love immediately.
2 double channels - low and high - and a super clean sound. Low and treble eq, a tremolo double knobed and a reverb. 3 pre tubes, 2 6550 and a rectifier. That's all.

The clean sound is a sort of a jazzy tune, slightly distorted. After '5' the volume is a growling bear with tremendous bass frequencies. A sort of Hiwatt (or even a silver face for its bass), more dynamic but with less sparkling treble. The mid/low frequencies are a bit emphasized but never become scratching or confused.
Used with my Les Paul Custom '87 and with a 'Fat Cat' is an orgasm. A wall of sound. I play some stoned/psycho/space rock and the Sceptre is #1.

Let you know...

Febuary 1969 was the birth of my Sceptre. I am currently in a ProgRock band, a Grindcore band, and a Experimental/Electronica duo, and this amp fits in perfectly to each situation. One channel, like all of the Sceptres. It is simple and that is what I love. I run it through a fender 4x12 and it is way to loud. Unlike most of the other reviewers on here, I can get an amazingly sweet tube overdrive by cranking this to 10. I rarley do this because of the simple fact that I want to keep my hearing. The reverb knob is useless for the purpose of reverb, but for a quick boost it works great. I've also gotten some sweet distortion and feedback from that. I'm giving it an 8 because its only one channel.

Its sound is completley vintage. That is why I love it. The clean channel distorts only around 9 or 10, 9 only if the reverb is up. The distortion is sweet, not metal sounding. It gets heavy in the classic rock sense. I use a LP Studio with standard humbuckers and for the prog and ambient stuff it fits in no problem. for grind i just throw a ds-1 on it and it sounds great. It can get noisy if your playing with alot of treble and contour, and really noisy with the reverb added to that. I usually play my bridge pickup with the treble low on the amp and the bass higher, so i have no noise problems at all. The clean I would compare it to a bassy Fender or even a Mesa Lonestar.

I gig without a backup. However it gets darn hot. I do run a fan behind it out of paranoia, but i have never actually had a problem with it. I really should get it serviced within the next month or two, its been 8 or so months since the last retube. But never failed me, i've played it for hours, even left it on for a couple, a sin i know.

Sunn is long dead.

I've been playing for 5 years. It is my first amp that i actually bought. If it were stolen, i would try to get another, though i know it would be hard. I love that it is vintage and it sounds like it too. I dont like the reverb that much, and it is quite sensative to the treble. I wish it had a master volume. thats about it.

1971 Sunn Amp and Cab; my Sunn was bought for metal, and rock. Did well once I figured out its strengths and weaknesses. Four channels, two bright, two normal. 8 ohm output, 4 ohm if daisy chained with other cabs. No headpone jack.

Very clean powerful amp. Durable as a tank. Only recently, after 35 years use, did it need new capacitors and a few resistors. Perfect for the clean sound. And you get tons of it. Any distortion you get has to be created by a muff pi or external pre-amp, or metal zone pedal. You won;t find tube overdrive or distortion on this amp if you turn it up to 12, which it won't do. 10 is the limit.

It came with a 3 Sunn Speaker Sceptre cab. Not one of my favorites. Sunn speakers were POS variety. I recommend a set of Celestion Greenbacks, GH30s, or JBL E-120 series. These speakers bring out the beast in the Sunn. Just be warned there is no ultra drive and no woman tone in the SUnn unless you provide an external source.

I use SGs with 490R and 498T pickups, Les Pauls with Ceramic 496 and 500T pickups, Strats with noiseless pickups. As stated before this is a clean machine amp. Tough as an Army tank, built to last, but no distortion. High volume is clean and powerful. No distortion anywhere. KT 88s or 6550 amp tubes recommended. I use Russian Made Sovtek tubes Svetlana in a pinch. I would not use a CHinese 6550 tube with this amp. I did once and regretted it.

Clean, no noise amp. Again, I would rate the Amp as an 8 with Celestions or JBL speakers. With Sunn speakers, I give it a 3 or 4. Stick with Celestion or JBL.

This amp is a hoss. Lasted 35 years before any repair. Had to had it biased a couple of times or 3 but that is way below normal . Most amps should be biased every year or so.

Never needed much customer support but when I did, Sunn came through for me well and quickly. Since Fender bought Sunn, and no longer makes the Sunn brand, I have no idea what their support is.

I have been playing since 1966. With the proper speakers this amp can really kick butt. With Sunn Speakers, I would pass. Sunn speakers suck.

Don't know when this beast was made, however, it does have a sticker on the back chassis that tells me it's approved for electrical safety by the City Of Los Angeles....My dad bought it to use as a PA...he got the head AND the 610 S Speaker cabinet...Not much in the way of features here, just a lot of clean tube volume. I do wonder tho why the outputs are for 4 or 8 ohm speakers and the cabinet that came with it is 6 ohm......

She sings and never gets tired.......The original tubes that were in it are still in it (as far as I know). Reverb......don't really use it, not very good with effects, clean reverb is good tho'. I use it for my guitars and basses (Gibson ES-335, Fender Telecaster, which were dad's, my ESP LTDM200 FM(awesome), Kramer Focus 5000( think lightning bolt), 67 Hofner Beatle Bass, and Charval bass w/ active pick-ups). Sounds good with my toys....Boss DD6, SD-1, DF-2, TW1, Ibanez Chorus, DOD compressor, and finally, original Big Muff Pi and Small Stone Phase Shifter.....almost forgot the MXR Phase 90.

Like I said, Orig tubes are probably still in her( we've never changed them anyway). She's never let me down, although I only use her for practice anymore.

Ha ha......

I inherited this amp along with a Fender twin, and the afore- mentioned Fender and Gibson guitars. It's been in the family for probably 25 years now. You won't be buying it from me, and it doesn't go out anymore. I've been playing since I was about 5 (natural born drummer, hard practicing bassist and guitarist). All in all, solid amp, not very good reverb, stack is an impressive looking piece of equipment. Nope. You won't be buying it from me!

1- volume - High - Mid - Bass - Contour //trem - depth //Reverb - depth (not sure of the exact order) this is it for controls on the back panel is where the Sunn spring reverb unit plugs in w/ rca type plugs. Also has rca jacks for the on/off foot controll for trem and verb. That is it.

1st of all I bought this as a combo amp - the head w/ a 4-12 sonic 16ohm guitar cabinet for $300.00 (deal) I also own a feature packed Mesa Heartbreaker and used that untill fuses started blowing so I pulled this out before practice and was very suprized to here what a difference in REAL sound this has compared to the hailed mesa engineering. I play a "79" Gibson les paul custom w/ stock pickups (The perfect humbucker sound as far as I am concerned) It sounded so 3 dimentional it was almost alive. There are amps that will carve up any tone or sound you want but stays in the 2 dimentional world this is something you need to experience to know what I am talking about. Anyway I was so excited I played for so long I almost forgot about life. The sound stayed clean up to around 7 then broke up painfully beautifully. So when I put down my guitar I called my tech and made an appointment to bring in my Heartbreaker and thought I would bring in the Sunn head also for a checkup and some minor repairs. The power tube would rattle loose and cut the output so had that fixed and he called me about power tube issues and said that the tubes where not the right tubes and the pair failed miserably for a matchup. Not sure what tube were in it but he said they where to small and evnentually I would be bringing it back in with regular use so I had him put the recomended tubes in(KT-88s). When I got the amp back I played through it and now I am not sure if I like it as much due to the fact that it breaks up around 4 now and also seems louder. IMO though it is still a much more realistic 3D sound than the Mesa Heartbreaker. So I will prolly try and sell the heartbreaker and get a real speaker cab and some foot toys. I am a friggin 38 year old giddy kid again. I am thinking about going w/ avatar speakers they are great cabs w/real proven speakers. Also you can custum order mix and match any brand and wattage speakers (Great for Studio micing)

Don't know yet - But I will soon

For the price of reality what a deal. I paid $150.00 for the head and now have another $130.00 invested in some maintance. I will be keeping this head I have played bass through it and this deceptionaly limited bass just pours out liquid tone. Somebody get me a towel.

I believe my Sunn Sceptre was made somewhere between 1969-1971. The amp is one channel, four inputs (two bright, two normal), all tube (except the tremolo, which is solid state, but is excellent nonetheless), an incredibly crappy reverb that I never use except to make howling noises, 60 extremely loud & underrated watts (sounds more like 100-140), 2xRCA 6550s, 1 12AX7, 1 12AU7 (for reverb), 1 6an8a (phase inverter), solid state rectumfrier, and a very handy midrange boost that adds balls to your sound. The amp weighs 45lbs, which is a bit much, but the tone is worth it, and i'm going to install side handles to compensate. The tremolo is also excellent, and makes a very cool effect for bass when using feedback. I also have the footswitch for it.

Now for the sound: it's amazing!!! I use this amp for bass with an Ibanez Lawsuit Precision Bass (incredible bass) with stainless steel strings, and go for a John Entwistle "Live at Leeds" or "Woodstock" sound, with a bit more overdrive. This amp gets it for me. I wanted a Hiwatt, but the prices on them are rediculous. This gets very close, and is actually a bit more aggressive sounding. I use this amp with a Univox 2x15 cabinet loaded with a Weber Ceramic Thames 15 & a Ceramic Chicago 15, and the port sealed. This amp has my sound. I usually leave the settings at B:1, M:10, T:wherever, mid boost ON. The key to getting a good overdriven sound is keeping your mids as high as possible. The bass must be left at 1, otherwise you get a nice Jack Bruce "well executed fart" tone, which is nice for Cream songs, but worthless for anything else. With the settings the way I have them, I do indeed have a much more midrangey sound, but for when I need to shake the place, I biamp this amp with a Sunn 200s with a Sunn 215B w/JBL E-140s to really get loud. B-D

If you want to hear some clips of how this amp sounds, I have some below. Granted, they're not of very good quality, and I was only using a computer mic, so they don't sound the best, but they should give you a general idea:

http://www.miseo.net/sean/wontgetfooledagain.mp3
http://www.miseo.net/sean/roadrunner2.mp3
http://www.miseo.net/sean/pinballwizardsunn.mp3
http://www.miseo.net/sean/amazingjourneysparks.mp3

Also note that I played these very sloppily, so forgive me for that.

I've never had this thing fail on me, ever. It has a crack in one of the transformers, but it still keeps on chugging. The tubes are ancient, but they still work. It's built like a tank. I love it. I'll never sell it.

Sunn is dead. Thanks alot, Fender.

I love it. It's the perfect overdriven bass amp.

This is an update of my previous review.

All the features of my previous review plus a 3-prong cord, new 6an8 driver tube, and cleaned pots

Well for one, the pots aren't scratchy anymore, the reverb lines aren't full of static, and I got a 3-prong cord put on like I said i would. The sonic improvements of these things alone are worth an extra point.

Played through a 4x10 cabinet (unlike my last review, where i played through a 2x12), the bass is still VERY strong, as is fitting for a company that was famous for its bass amps. The treble is bright, but again, not as super chimey as Fender's amps of the same era. Think a cross between a blackface fender Bassman and a tweed Bassman.
The thing that's impressing me more and more is the mid boost switch. When off the amp is very clean and balanced and can do the "scooped" sound very well as long as you don't need tons of distortion. When on, the sound is noticeably thicker and mid heavy-very reminiscent of the sound of '70s hard rock bands (Bad Co., Nazareth, Aerosmith, et al.), but, again, this amp does not get that distorted. The reverb is nice and functional, but can also get very swampy when turned up.

A/B'ed against a 100W Marshall Super Bass, I was amazed. This amp has MORE bass response, The volume is comparable, and with the midrange boost up it's got a similar mid response. It's a bit brighter though, again like a cross between a blackface Fender and a tweed fender (which the Marshall was based on). The one big difference is that the Sunn sounds tighter. It's got a more aggressive attack and a gritty growl, but the amp just doesn't overdrive like a Marshall. When dimed, it gets a bit spongier due to its tube rectifier, but it still sounds stiff as a board next to the patented "Marshall Crunch." I have to agree with another post-If this thing had a Marshall-style Presence Control to loosen up its sound, it would Rule the World. Period.

still going...and going...and going. But I STILL Won't gig without a backup. Gigs are STILL money.

When I sent this to my tech, he had never seen one before, and asked if I had a Schem. Lucky for me, I did. But I'm a junkie.
I can't say this enough: These amps aren't your run of the mill Fender/Marshall. Chances are your average Tech hasn't worked on these in a while, if ever. Get a Schematic from Fender at www.mrgearhead.com. Sooner or later, you ARE going to need it, and being prepared means less downtime and more play time.

I Still like it. It's still a great amp. Still Built to last. Still a gas to play through. In fact now it's better, because it doesn't buzz or shock me thanks to the 3-prong cord. And the controls aren't scratchy anymore.
But still, turning this thing up to 10 doesn't elicit the hopelessly addicting sound of a crunching Marshall Head. And man, if it could, I'd sell the Marshall for a ton of cash and live Happily ever after.

This amp is a 1970 model with 2 6550 power tubes. (under)Rated at 60 watts and is louder than some 120 watters. Bought with homade 4X12 loaded with Jensens, but use a 1X12 cab with a peavey scorpion right now. This is a bone dry amp. No channel switching, or loops. Just a tremolo circut and a reverb. Someone added a bright switch as well, which I engage. It actually may be a "cut" switch. It's all good though!

I've used this amp for Jazz, Blues, Rock, and anything else where my princeton reverb is too quiet. This is a CLEAN amp. Smoking humbuckers with the amp on 7 will distort this amp, but not much else. BUT!!! With a good clean tone, and a good OD pedal, one can get great tones from this thing. The reverb on mine adds a bit of grit as well, but could be the tube. It sounds cool, so I'll leave it.

Solid as a rock! I think its had the same tubes for like 20 years, and this thing is still rocking. Ultra reliable, and bullet-proof.

I think Sunn is dead.

I think this is a great amp for the money! Good tones, but not really that versatile. It does it's OWN THING and does it very well. If you want a good, no-frills power-house amp with lots of wallop that will always cut through a mix...you've found your amp.

This is a 1968 head with 2 KT88s, i think it's around 60 watts. Kind of lacking in features as it only has a clean channel, but that's okay because it sounds great. The reverb and tremelo are nice with a footswitch. I use a Peavey 2 button footswitch that I soldered RCA jacks onto. The knobs this amps has are: volume, bass, treble, countour (mid), reverb and trem rate & depth. There's a bright or normal input (I usually use the normal). I'm currently running this amp through a fender 4x12 cabinet.

I play a Jaguar reissue with a Rat, big muff and delay or sometimes a POD. This setup makes for a sparkling clean sound(almost too sparkley if you use the bright input). It reminds me of a Fender amp. I don't think I've ever turned it up past 3 or 4... I think this amp could easily blow my ears out before distorting the clean sound. It's not noisy at all...

I play different kinds of rock and this amp is great for everything. My RAT sounds awesome through it, although my Big Muff doesn't sound quite as good as it did through my solid state amp for some reason...

I got this amp over a year ago and it's worked perfectly since. I'd gig without a backup (especially since I'm poor). The guy who last serviced it said one of the smaller tubes is really hard to find so that might suck in the future...

I've been playing for 5 years and this was my first tube amp. I later bought a Sovtek Mig 100, which is also a great amp, but I prefer the Sunn. If it were stolen I'd probably go with another used Sunn head because they're such a good value for the price. I only wish it had a grounded power cord so I won't get shocked anymore when I sing at the same time, but I'm sure that's not too hard to wire.

This amp is great if you're looking for a good clean tube tone, but you'll probably want a few pedals... The reverb and tremelo are excellent though.

This was my first pro amp and it was probably exactly what I needed at the time to propel me and my band forward. It was the late 60's model (like the inside of the Woodstock album) without the later midrange boost switch, but the contour was the midrange and it helped immensely to get the tone I wanted with both Strats and newer humbucker guitars. It was clean to the max, and I used it with various footswitches for overdrive. the reverb was great if you were playing clean,but noisy with any overdrive. The tremelo worked quite well. All 3 preamp tubes could actually be replace with 12ax7's or 12at7's even though there were 3 different numbers for the original tubes. the 6550 power tubes were tight and clean all the way up to 9.5. After using this amp as my main guitar amp for 3 years, I finally got a 100 watt Marshall with the master volume and found out what Presence was. Sunn made a good amp, but they should have added a Presence control and a better signal path through the reverb so you could play fuzz and reverb at the same time without nasty spring noise. After I retired it to my backup, I found out it was an excellent bass or keyboard amp and used it for that until the end.

the variety of sounds on this amp were limited. Clean, clean w/reverb, clean w/reverb and/or tremelo. The contour control (midrange) was actually quite excellent, but the bass control was rough - you wanted more bottom sometimes, but couldn't get it without it changing your whole tone to an undesireable percussive effect on the beginning of each pick. The reverb was great except when you added distortion of any kind, then it sucked, so I kept it down below 3 most of the time. The tremelo was excellent, but I used it only a little. I used it with a 58 strat, 65 strat, 73 strat, and an Ibanez Iceman. I then let my bass guy use it with his Fender Precision and it was awesome! He had punch with those tubes and clean all the way up.

After having this amp only a year, my drummer and me had a nasty wreck in my truck and flipped with this amp in the back of the open truck. It landed on the pavement and bounced a few times as did the 4212 Sunn cabinet. It had a nasty mark on it from then on, but all I did was reconnect a ground wire that came loose and replace one tube that broke and I played this amp for several more years!!! I replace all the tubes only once in 5 or 6 years of solid gigging. It did finally break down at a 1000 seater on the bass player, but it was about 15 years old and needed new filter caps after being gigged every night for many years.

RIP Sunn, and RIP my long lost Sceptre. The schematics are readily available from many sources and it is a very straight forward tube amp. Some pro fender or Marshall techs could probably even fix a few things while retubing it for you, like a master volume if you want and a better routing for the reverb. (Somebody stick a Marshall Presence knob in the preamp too, please!)

I have been playing for over 23 years, the first 3 with this amp. I loved it because it was my first big amp and it was LOUDD!!! I liked it's reliability too. I hated it's lack of versatility, but even today, I still think about picking up one of these just to have around for bass, keyboards, or a backup amp. It was stolen in the mid 80's by a rat bastard bass player with 10,000 bucks worth of my other gear too. You will recognize it by the tolex tear on the bottom front that also bit into the wood from the car accident I had.

1970 SUNN SCEPTRE; BOUGHT WHEN NEW AND STILL GOING STRONG 30 YEARS LATER; TWO 6550 POWER TUBES; 60WattsRMS, 140WattsPEAK - SOUNDS LIKE A THOUSAND!SUPER CLEAN, PUNCHY HALF-STACK W/4-12 SUNN SPEAKERS(LONG-THROW CABINET: EXTREME PROJECTION!)BRIGHT CHANNEL WITH AN ATTITUDE;MID-BOOST SWITCH AND CONTOUR POT FOR TONE CITY.

THIS AMP HAS A VERY TIGHT, COMPRESSED SUSTAIN THAT SINGS FOR DAYS; ALSO KILLER FOR BASS; LIMITED IN VERSATILITY, BUT WHO GETS FAMOUS FOR THAT! GREAT FOR A SIGNATURE SOUND; NEEDS OD FX PEDAL IF YOU WANT DISTORTION: THIS AMP WILL SOUND CLEAN WAY PAST THE POINT OF PAIN.

THIRTY YEARS AND STILL AWESOME; HAD LIFETIME GUARANTEE THAT OUT LIVED THE MANUFACTURER; TREMELO NO LONGER WORKING, BUT I NEVER USED IT ANYWAY. NEVER NEEDED A BACK-UP; 15 YEARS REGULAR PROFESSIONAL GIGS!

THE ORIGINAL SUNN COMPANY IS LONG-TIME GONE;

NO LONGER USED ON-STAGE; TOO LOUD FOR MOST VENUES; VOLUME ON TWO WILL DROWN-OUT ANY DRUMMER; IRREPLACABLE AT ANY PRICE!

This is a 1970 Sceptre head. 60 watts. Single channel, mono, with tubes.
Controls (L-R): volume, treble, bass,"contour" (read "Middle"), trem rate & depth, mid boost switch,reverb knob. standby, polarity and light-up power switch rounds out the front panel.
back panel: accessory outlet, fuseholder, reverb in & out plugs, footswitch L&R plugs, 2 speaker out jacks. no footswitch , but someone hardwired the 'verb and trem so that both are always on.
This is the first amp I've ever owned that has a mid control, and I'm finding it quite handy, but I'm not thowing away my old fenders just yet. The mid boost switch is also quite usable especially for leads.
the transformers are big and heavy and original.
Tubes: 2-6550s (US), 1-12ax7, 1-12au7, 1-6an8 (warning! oddball tube!), and a GZ34 (5AR4) rectifier.
I'm giving it an 8-it doesn't have a master volume (useless on this amp), channel switching, effects loops, or any of that. I don't care. I don't need any of that right now. what it can do it does well, and that's enough for right now.

First of all, a caveat: IF YOU WANT TO SOUND LIKE JIMMY PAGE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. This amp doesn't do that. at all. It's equipped with a pair of 6550s (LOTS o'headroom) that are wired in an ultra-linear configuration (to reduce distortion-Late '70s fenders had this, but they did it badly. Sunn did it well). So, clean tubes plus clean-sounding circuitry equals...well, CLEAN. Go get a Hiwatt if you want a more distorted sound. On ten, this amp drops hints that it *might* get distorted someday, but not today, and tomorrow doesn't look good either. I got this amp because I knew what I was getting into, and I wanted to get an amp with a clean sound.
I got it. As a die-hard small amp freak, the first thing I noticed is the bass. It is there even at 1 on the volume dial. the amp really starts to warm up after 4. the bass knob kicks in above 2, but doesn't get flappy until about 7 or 8, and even then it's not as flappy as my larger Fenders. the treble knob isn't as robust as a fender's, and the amp's character generally isn't as bright as a silverface (or even a blackface) fender. Like I said before, the contour/mid knob is quite usable, especially with the mid boost switch in the "on" position.
The trem sounds good, although its range of speeds is slower than a comparable Fender amp, which is not bad. I like my trem slow. It could be a bit deeper, though. At 7 the trem is subtle, and below 6, it is inaudible.
The reverb could be LOTS better(especially since the pot is scratchy) and the send and return wires could be shielded for less noise. Also, the amp has a 2-prong power cord. This is bad, as 120VAC likes to flow through *you* in its search for a ground source, and adds a buzz to the amp besides. In fact, the first thing I plan to do with this amp is to put a 3-prong cord on it. anything less than that is just plain unsafe.
I give it a 7-the basic amp sounds VERY good (unless you like super ditort-o metal. there again, go somewhere else. although it can do country easily, it can do so much more. a good clean tone is SO usable in so many areas that this amp would be a welcome addition to many a backline. Again, the only niggles are the iffy reverb and the unusability of half the trem depth knob's range.

Well, it's lasted 30 years, so it must not be too bad, reliability-wise. Still, if you can affortd it, it's stupid to gig without it. I trust the amp, but gigs are money. And audiences tend to hate a band where they can't hear the guitar playing.

the Sunn that made this amp is long gone. As you now know, Sunn has been bought out by Fender, who has schematics of the old amps available through www.mrgearhead.com/ If I were you, I would get a schematic of my Sunn amp and keep it with the amp. You never know when you'll need it, and how familiar your local repair tech will be with these things as they weren't made by Fender or Marshall. But Fender is good at customer service. Use it and get a printing of your amp's schem and keep it with your amp. I can't say it enough.

As a player of 5 years and a staunch Fender devotee, this is a definite change of pace for me. But it's not a bad one. Its sound is, again,very clean, but not harsh to the ear, even though it is loud. And while this amp isn't the Be-all or end-all for me, I have a feeling that this is the kind of amp whose sound grows on you as the years go by and it still sounds great.

The Sceptre was built in 1969. I bought it for $200, and it has been worth much more than every penny to me. It is definitely my primary amp, and at 140 watts rms, is well suited for gigging. I play from hendrix to hardcore, and this amp does both very well. It is very warm, and has a deep and trippy 12" spring reverb. What is odd is that it has a "reverb loop" for linking spring 'verbs. I tried this with the reverb from my univox head and it sounded remarkable, but its not at all practical. It has four inputs, two bright and two normal. if you want to call this two channels, go ahead, but there is only one master volume. i wish it had an fx loop, but i am happy with the 4 and 8 ohm output jacks. the front consists of the usual volume, treble, and bass. it also has an awesome contour control. when playing heavy stuff, cut it all the way and you suck the mids out for killer hardcore rythyms. there is also a mid-boost switch. when cut, this will provide a solid state tone, but i never use it and you wouldnt either, after hearing this amp. when boosted, its seventies flashback happy hour. amazing. this warmer than the sun itself. there are also rate and depth for tremolo, and reverb knobs. it has enough power for me alright, in fact ive never turned it all the way up- not even on stage. i give it a ten because anyone would love this amp- despite playing style.

i use a jackson randy rhoads and a strat, but i run bass through this amp without a problem (when using a 15" speaker) its also good for 'vintagizing' your sterile digital synths and keys. my strat is loaded with a silver lace sensor at the neck, a duncan hotrail in the mid, and a super distortion humbucker at bridge. Even when the amp is at full bassey tone with all the sound rounded off, the hotrail can cut through for some distinguished lead work. for this, i wish the amp had a footswitch for the midboost- it would allow me to use the lace sensor all the time. for chording, i can use any pickup from any guitar and it sounds phenomenal. when contour, treble and reverb are all the way up, and mid boost is cut, the amp sounds a bit harsh. good for country, but i'm not garth brooks. if you cut the tone dials on your axe, however, you can manipulate some interesting tones with the amp at this setting. the amp alone cannot give you the world as far as different sounds, but with just about any fx processor or pedal, you can get a kick-ass sonic color from the sunn. i run the amp through an old 2x12 univox cabinet. i never even bothered to check what speakers are in it, because they sound so great. when i put even a natural overdrive pedal on, like a boss sd-1, i get a gorgeously broken up fuzz, and i love it. normally i run a digitech rp-5 with a crybaby. most people hate the rp-5's distortion, and i agree through any practice amp, but this amp turns the digitech into an eventide gtr4000!!! with no outboard gear, the amp is clean all the way up. with no gain control, you'd need to blow your ears out to overdrive this amp.

the sceptre never broke down, and i've never needed to replace a tube. mind you- this thing sounds good with rca tubes, imagine sovteks! i have played live with no backup, and i gave my fellow guitarists' marshall preamp a scare...

R.I.P, Sunn.

i've been playing for 6 years now and i have what harmony central's writers would call gear acquisition syndrome. if this was stolen i couldn't replace it, as the one i bought is the only one i've ever seen. but i would if i could. i love this amp to death, but i would sell it if something else just struck me with awe and i had to have it. i would compare this amp with a fender princeton reverb, but obviously this amp is a 140 watt halfstack, and in my opinion sounds even more pristine. That is the closest match i have ever heard. with this amp along side a boogie preamp, there is no tone imaginable that a guitarist cannot get. i only wish it had line out, for recording. i mike this amp and go straight to hard disk. its that superb.