Sunn Sentura II Head

Although I no longer have the amp, I got my Sentura II in the summer of 1968 when I was 17. Mine came with the 2-15 short bottom, the one with the speakers offset from the centerline of the cabinet. It came with 2 JBL D130F speakers. I played both a VOX Jaguar Combo organ, and a cheap, no name brand, electric guitar through it. Later I got rid of the VOX and used a Fender Rhodes Elect Piano.

In 1972 I bought another matching bottom with 2 JBL D 130's. running the amp through 4 JBL's was earth shaking. I don't remember ever having to run the volume higher than 5. The rhodes...especially the bass..would shake a room. the tone and quality of sound was beautiful.

I never had a problem with the amp. I'd go to agig, set it up, plug in the Rhodes, and it always worked..EVERY TIME. I just wish I had it back.

The sound of the Rhodes through the senturaII with the 4 JBL D130F speakers was excellent...from the lowest bass note to the very highest treble note. A nice full, smooth sound. Great reverb for keys.

In the 12 years that I owned the amp, it never failed and never needed any repair.

Never needed anything from SUNN. The amp worked flawlessly

I wish that I could have my old amp back.

My Sunn amp was "born" on September 25, 1967! It is a one channel head with four inputs - two bright and two normal. I tried linking the channel inputs together like an old Marshall, but it doesn't help or hurt the sound. The front panel from left to right is inputs, volume, treble, bass, contour, rate (for tremelo), depth (for tremelo), reverb then the standby switch, polarity switch and power switch. The back of the head has the power cord, a power fuse, and jacks for reverb in and out, two footswitch jacks (for reverb and tremelo) and two speaker outputs. There is a beautiful reverb tank that I love. It's springy, but to me it's lush - I actually like it more than a lot of Fenders I've played. The tube compliment is two KT-88's for power, a GZ34 rectifier tube, a 6AN8 phase inverter tube, a 7025 (12AX7) and a 12AU7. Currently my amp has 6550's in it, but when I feel the urge to spend to much on tubes, I'll put KT-88's back in. It's a basic tube amp, but has a big, full, beautiful clean sound that is the perfect basis for any kind of pedal in front of it to get whatever kind of distortion you are looking for. I currently use it as my practice amp, but it can really get loud - some KT-88's can push almost forty watts a tube - that would be 80 watts of pure tube power. I would say it sits in the 60 to 75 watt range for power.

Well, I have a few guitars and I've tried them all through this amp and the beauty is that every guitar's character shines through. I have a Fender '57 Vintage reissue from '81, a PRS SE Soapbar Single Cut Away, an Ibanez RG-421, an Epiphone Les Paul and a Warmoth Strat style single humbucker guitar with a Floyd. Most of my guitars have Duncan JB's for a reference. You can have big round jazz chords, funky and chicken pickin' type twang and put your favorite distortion pedal in front of it and it will rip your head off. With the tremelo, you can get some cool Jimmy Page sounds. The tremelo is actually very smooth and can be subtle or obnoxious. I have no problem keeping this amp clean at high volumes, but if you pick hard it will give you some nice break up as you turn it up. It does have a little bit of hum when idling, but it's tubes and is almost as old as me. What works great as a distortion in front of it is the Radial Tonebone Hot British. It's the good ol' Fendery clean and Marshally distortion. KICK ASS! There again, for reference, I am a huge Rush fan and love Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Triumph, Deep Purple, Rainbow, UFO, etc...

I would definitely gig with this with no back up. Maybe some extra tubes. If it can keep going this long, I think it has proven it's reliability. I've never had a problem with it and recently had it checked by a tech and he gave it a clean bill of health stating that it is solid as a rock and definitely draws power as it dims the lights as you warm up the tubes.

Technically speaking, the real Sunn amps disappeared quite some time ago. Yes, Fender now owns Sunn, but I think in a few short years Fender will own everybody except Mesa Boogie, Gibson and PRS. I am 110% sure that Fender would laugh me right out of the state if I went to them for service work on my amp!

I've been playing since I was 10. Holy shit, that's been 29 years. I feel more like I have about 5 - 10 years of practice and experience in me. I waste too much time tinkering with amps and guitars and not enough time playing! Right now, for amps I have this Sunn, a Marshall JCM-800 50 watt head, an Ampeg VL-1002 Lee Jackson head and a Mesa Nomad 55 combo. Currently the Sunn gets plugged into a Fender Vibro-King 2x12 cabinet, but when I take this to the rehearsal room it will meet the Marshall JCM-900 1960 4x12. This is totally different from the Marshall, which I also love and definitely different from the Ampeg, which I'm not to sure about right now. I would absolutely buy this again because it is the perfect basis for which all good guitar sounds can come from. Find one - turn it up - smell the tubes cook and play some damn loud rock'n'roll!

This amp is from the late 60's/early 70's and sports a (sort of) minimalist array of controls. One channel with four inputs (2bright/2normal)- Volume/Treble/Bass/Contour(mid?), plus tremelo rate/depth and reverb. This amp uses 2 6550's and 3(?) preamp tubes, 12ax7's and another tube (i think), the amp is not with me right now. Beware, it is a very loud head.

I have a rickenbacker 360 and schecter c1+, it sounds great with either, but better with the rick. I use a proco rat for dirty sounds and the amp and pedal complement each other very well. I can use the amp for any kind of music, from clean jazz to noise-core and everything in between, the key is the great clean it starts with which allows you to add the dirty in later with the boxes. Without any overdrive pedals, this thing breaks up at around 4 or 5, and you can get a very classic rock overdrive out of it. Again, the clean is very wonderful, very round. The only drawback is that the amp is also pretty bright, i keep the treble down between 3 and 4, this isn't so much a problem as it is more than enough usable high end.

very reliable for a very old amp, will gig with backup. it just got grounded and had a speaker out repaired, but for a 30 year old + amp this is acceptable as all therest of the amp works including reverb and tremelo.

I have been playing for 3 or 4 years, I don't remember. I also own a peavey backstage 30 and a schecter c1+ ad rickenbacker 360 and a blb sound 412 w/75w celestions. I have owned a carvin mt50(head), marshall jcm 900 and a carvin cab. This amp beats the other two, hands down. I love the clean, I don't have any negatives other than the over responsiveness of tone controls, but this isn't reall a drawback just can be somewhat of an inconvenience. If it was stolen, I'd look for another, I want the footswitch for it but may just mate another 2 button switch with rca plugs instead.