Sunn Solarus Combo

I pulled the chassis to replace the tubes and found the manufacture date of 9/24/68. The amp was sitting in an old shed full of car parts and junk. It was covered in dust and dirt and looked like it would never sound good. After an extensive cleanup inside and out it plays like new. The truly don't make them like they used to. I pulled the old tubes and replaced with electro-harmonix and am VERY pleased with the sound quality.

I use mine with a vintwge style appeal. I use a fender strat with lace sensors-> Dunlop Wah Pedal-> TS9-> Amp. It gives me all the sounds I could want. You can use the amp to push the volume and just use the TS9 for a boost, or you could turn the level all the way up on the TS9 and get a really good overdriven tube sound. At around 7 on the volume it gets right where you want it with volume and tube saturation. They were really thinking in those days about where they should break the amp sound up. It is pretty loud though and you can definately keep up with the bass and drums. I play mainly blues and texas rock so I don't need a Zakk Wylde type of sound. You have to remember the date that this thing was made, but it is extremely transparent so you can plug any pedal into this thing. Trust me I've tried.

this thing is a true antique so never leave home without a trusty backup. Personally it has never let me down.

please... 1968?

I have been playing for more than twenty years now and have played through a lions share of amps and guitars. My advice to people are to find a guitar that plays well, put the pickups you want in it, and then find your sound through an amp. Not someone elses sound: your sound; your sound. Did you get that? This amp can take you where you want to go. You just have to find your tone in your hands not the awesome new distortion pedal that is always showing up on the market.

My solarus combo's s/n books out as 1969, but old and worn marx-a-lot "B.G. 2-22-68' ". My styles include mostly metal/glam/classic rock. 4 input channels: 2-bright and 2 normal, the front driver baffle got modified by ?? I has what I believe to be a vintage EV 12" with aprox. an 80 to 90 oz. magnet, I have learned it came with two tens origionally, and am about to restore this to its origional condition. Although I only play at home, through a vintage ampeg v4 /412 rig, so it does and has enough power/features for me by a long shot. I pratice through the single ev 12 in the cab, but practice with a 412 rig.

I put some new tubes in it after I got it, the readily available jj/tesla, which sound great on the "front end", but the power tubes wouldnt fit back into the cab (due to height), so I put the origional/nos bottled RCA 6CA7/EL34 pair back in and got a roland

GP-100 rack-mount " effects proc., I also now use an MXR smart gate on the front of the roland, very loud with the amp on around "3", through the half stack of 12's, this amp has to be pushed hard to acheive "distortion/tube overdrive" on its own, it has to be pushed up to like 8 or 9, with the guitar at least 15 feet from the cab with no effects on the input. Very solid, dependable, predictable power, and super solid and very linear harmonics from the pair of jj's, but the old/microphonic RCA nos ones have a low end growl that is a "viscious wall off sound". The guitars used for input are an LP standard, and a schecter C1 with duncans.

If I did ever decide to gig, I know I could very readily count on the reliable reputation Sunn has/had earned for years, very highly underated in my opinion, this includes vintage and new botique amps I have demo'd, It is so ultra clean, with the reverb on at lower speeds, and with 2 or 3 showing on the contour pot, some stereo/chourusing/flange it is a true "treat of tone" for the ears to behold.

I am an amusement equipment technician by trade, so the warranty is now valid again until I die, or some one has to kill me to get this amp.

Been playing with all sorts of stringed instruments off and on for about 30 years. If my sunn where stolen, I would pay ebay bucks to replace it, if I/we where robbed I would say take the rack effects and the guitars, but please, not the sunn. Great bang for the buck, although the model t and 2000's continue to go for ebay collector bucks, most all of the other tube models remain affordable, as mine was.

I got my Sunn Solarus in 1968 at The House of Note in Redlands Calif.and I still have if today, and it still works! I have NEVER had any problems with this amp in the 35 years I've had it.I use it now for small clubs, and the power is still there.I wish I could find the foot switch that was lost in a move.I also have a 2x12 Sunn ext. speaker box loaded with JBL speakers for the bigger rooms.

I use a Gibson ES-335 guitar for rock and blues.I start with the amp volume on 4 and the guitar on 3 or 4. Then I crank the guitar volume to 10 on the bridge pick up for the overdrive.For brutal overdrive I use a OLD Gibson meastro fuzztone set at 5 volume and 6 attack.This amp can do just about anything I need.

This amp has NEVER failed.I do have a 60 watt Marshall as a back up BUT, so far I have never needed it.I do worry about replacement tube changing the sound and tone.I wish they were still around.

I only had one contact with thw company in 1968 and that was to order a replacement footswitch that was stolen

I have been playing for 39 years.Gibson ES-335(1967),Gibson SG(1968),Marshall AVT50.If it was between my 335 or the Sunn being ripped off TAKE THE SUNN !!!!!

This was a really good amp for me and I wish I'd never sold mine. I bought it used in about 1973 or 1974, and sold it in 1977 or 1978. It was just about too tall to sit on--you could horse it into the back seat of a Volkswagen Beetle if you needed to, by laying it down. I know, I did, often! I really liked the open-back design. Smooth action on the knobs, with wide-ranging controls. I used to wish it was juuust a little louder.

Using a LesPaul Custom, I played mostly commercial jazz, but used to mess around with a few rock bands, too. It was very quiet, until angered, in dance hall environments. If there was a humm on the stage I always knew it wasn't coming from me. I loved the richness in the changes. With a lot of amps, spinning a knob from "4" to "8" results in hardly any change at all, whether you're adding bass or treble or reverb. But on my Sunn, I always knew that more meant MORE. Distortion would start to growl around "7" or "8" and really spike upward from there. Much worse going from 7-8 than from 3-6. This wasn't an arena amplifier, but it could fill a good-sized room with about whatever you could imagine.

I never had a problem my Solarus. I was always careful to keep stuff out of the back so plenty of air could get through. I just never had a problem--even the heavy vinyl cover stayed in great shape the whole time I owned the amp! For five or six years, it was my only amplifier and I was never really disappointed with it or in it.

I understand that someone is now building amps and calling them Sunn. I hope that they're holding on to some of the heritage, and some of the magic, too. But I really have nothing to base this category on, since I never needed any kind of support or service.

As I young man, lugging my Sunn through various gymnasiums, dance halls, bars and auditoriums, I was not kind to my Sunn Solarus. But it never let me down. It was a much better amplifier than I ever was a guitar player! I messed around some with pedals and other gadgets, but for the most part, any sound I wanted, I could get from my Sunn.