Sunn Solarus Head

I have a 1968 Sunn Solarus. It has normal and bright channels with two inputs each, volume, bass, teble and contour controls. It also has reverb and tremolo but I don't have a reverb tank nor a footswitch to utilize either one of these features. It's pretty straight forward, plug in, dial up your tone and volume level and have at it.

Here's where my story gets interesting. I got this amp from a friend who said it didn't work anymore and just wanted to get rid of it. Yeah that's right, he gave it to me! He wasn't kidding when he said it didn't work! It was "dead as a hammer"!! The output and power trannys were burnt up, power tubes were fried, filter caps dried out, even the power switch was fried! I wanted to see if it could be resurrected from the dead so I took it to a local tech and had him go through it to see what all it needed. We reconfigured the power amp section to run 6V6 power tubes, put a new Hammond power tranny and a 70's era Fender Bassman output tranny in it. Sounds strange I know but after we replace all the bad parts, I discovered one of the speakers (2x12 combo) had a frozen voice coil. So, I put couple Weber speakers in it, one alnico and one ceramic. So this amp is anything but original but let me tell you this is one great sounding amp. It has a sweet, twangy clean sound at about 3 on the volume. From 4 to 7 it is very touch dynamic. I can back off my guitar volume to get a great clean tone and at full volume go to a classic rock crunch that is awesome for blues as well. Beyond that, the power section really begins to sag with the tube rectifier. This old amp really loves pedals too. I have put compressors, wahs, and about a half dozen drive and boost pedals in front of it and they all sound stellar. I've had some really nice tube amps before and I currently own a Mesa Lonestar Special, but this is the first "vintage" point-to-point wired tube amp I've ever had and I must say that now that I have one there really must be something to the simplicity of these old hand wired amps. I run it through a Weber mini mass power attenuator so I can get a good dynamic "pushed" tone where the power tubes began to compress and put just a ting of hair on the sound but at a volume level I can manage. I just love the way it sings no matter the style of music. I run a compressor, a wah, a couple drive pedals and a delay and I can cover a wide range of tones. Country, pop, blues, classic rock all sound spectacular! I agree with the person in a previous review who said these amps are very underrated.

This amp has been given a new lease on life. With some tender loving care, she will be around for along time to come. I play in the worship band at my church so it stays put where it is. I don't think I have to worry with it like someone who gigs out on the road.

I'm told that Fender now owns Sunn so there basically is no customer support. Really the only thing I need to be concerned about is keeping good tubes in it and proper biasing. Other than that, a good local amp tech in case something else happens is all I need.

I'm am just totally floored everytime I play this amp! Really!! I've had some Fenders, Marshalls and the Mesa I mentioned before as well as a Line6 Vetta but this point-to-point wired jewel has its' own magic, mojo whatever you want to call it. And let me also say there is a lot to be said about using one of these old tube amps with a good power attenuator like the Weber mini mass. You have to crank the volume a bit to get the power tubes engaged and get some dynamics going and a power attenuator will allow you to do just that at a reasonable volume level. Remember, I play in a church band where stage volume is critical and I could not milk the really good sounds out this amp without the attenuator. In my humble opinion, this is a must have tool for any guitarist in a band where stage volume and blending with other instruments is an issue. Ok enough rabbit chasing.

See other reviews for the basics. My Solarus was modded so the reverb(which is still intact) is now an overdrive. Really dirty when cranked, and the mid-boost is switched!

Really basic amp for a basic set-up.

It does well with at-home levels, and it gives hell about 5. I run it through a Sunn 412L, and I've learned that putting anything on top of the amp usually results in things falling off and breaking.

Once warmed up, the amp is beautifully clean with minor tweaking of frequencies. The only distortion I use is an original Proco Rat, so you know what that sounds like. I play through a Gibson SG and Epi Les Paul, so I get a really thick sound either way, but moreso through the LP, as it's tuned to Dropped C.

The Solarus gives me loud. I like loud.

For a 36 year old head, I'm not going to argue it's reliability. Until I can find something that sounds as nice, I don't have a choice but to gig on this exclusively.

The founder of Sunn still answers questions on a Sunn forum, and from what I've read, he's very helpful. Otherwise, I have an incredible tech.

IF I lost this, I'd go hunting for another, or I'd be forced to get a Model T.

I love most things about it, although I think it's heavier than the cabinet I play it through! It also helps that Sunn is like a wonderful little secret in the world of vintage amps. I hate that Fender owns Sunn, and is doing nothing with it.

Compared to Marshalls or Fender amps, I'd still go with a classic Sunn.

In short, I'm a very happy guy.

See other reviews of this amp.

This is where I wanted to comment on this amp... I recently hit the studio with my band, and when we came around to recording guitars the producer/engineer (we're on a budget) set some of his gear up real fast and said to me "Hey what do you think of this sound?" It was the Sunn Solarus cranked to 9 and coming through a 4x12 with few different mics running simultaneously... I nearly wet myself. HUGE, roaring grind that cleaned right up into a sparkly dream of tone. I only did ONE guitar track and the 2 mics panned left/right with the Sunn absolutely SCREAMING loud sounds like a wall of guitar doom! Pefect punk/rockabilly-esque tones. Unfortunately I didn't get to experiment with the tremelo or reverb.

To listen to the results of this session visit my band's myspace page at myspace.com/thecutlassband. All the rhythm tracks are this amp.

I am unsure as I have not owned or used one for very long.

It sounds diesel and is loud as hell!!!!! A+ Amp in my book.

My Solarus was made in 1969. 100% origional. No new caps, pots, jacks, transformers... anything. Rated at 60 watts... ha, yeah right. With 2 6550's? I don't think so. Sounds more like 120 watts. It has 2 channels, Bright and Normal with 2 inputs for each channel. It has a solid state vibrato and a tube driven spring reverb, both of wich are footswitchable. The vibrato doesn't work on mine so I can't comment on that. The reverb, however, is very nice indeed. It also has a mid-boost switch, wich works great for getting a good "crunch".

It's a straight-ahead, point-to-point tube amp. It doesn't have 4 channels or 30 effects/amp models like the modern amps do, but that's how I like it. Simple yet effective.

I'm using this amp in my house right now. It has more then enough power for small/medium sized shows. I'm sure if you could do a large show with a couple of 4x12's.

This is where the amp shines. I run it though a 2x12 cab with Peavey Sheffield speakers. I'm using a Fender MIM Standard Stratocaster, maple neck, stock pickups. I have a couple of pedals, my signal chain is as follows...

Guitar --> Morley Power Wah w/ true bypass mod --> Digitech Bad Monkey --> EHX Big Muff (somtimes) --> Amp

I play alot of White Stripes/Soledad Brothers/Black Keys type of music and this amp works perfectly for that type of sound. If you crank it up to about 7 you get an amazing power tube crunch. Those 6550's are wonderful. They were Hendrixs' favorite. He had his amps converted to 6550's after he switched from Sunn to Marshall.

It's really clean anywhere below 6 unless you crank the mids and dig into the strings. It has a tube rectifier, so you get that nice spongy compression when you crank it. All in all, it's a great amp for clean jazz all the way up to metal (if you use a distortion pedal). I'll give it an eight because there's always something better.

So far it's been fine. Tubes are over 5 years old, except for the phase inverter wich is origional. It hasn't really been beaten up so I'm not sure how much abuse it could take. It's lasted nearly 40 years, so it must be pretty durable. I would gig without a backup. I might bring a set of power tubes along though, just incase.

It was made in 1969!

I've been playing for a few years now. This is my first tube amp and I love it. It fits every style of music that I like to play. I did compare it to a few other amps (Fender Bassman, 70's Traynor, Laney, Carvin and HiWatt). I chose this one because it had a unique sound to it, and it was only $378! If it were stolen I'd buy another one (if I could find another one). All in all, it's a great amp for almost anything. Jazz, Blues, Country, Rock and even Metal if you spend time tweaking it.

I went down to the guitar store to buy a roland jc-120 and ended up walking out with this amazing amp.

While the reverb is very weak and hardly noticeable, the tremelo is amazing (especially at slower speeds).

Well, if this amp was good enough for The Sonics, The Who, and Jimmy Hendrix, I guess it is good enough for me.

This amp is beautiful sounding. Probably one of the sweetest and chiming clean tones I have ever heard.

This amp has an amazing amount of headroom.

No problems yet (knock on wood).

No comment.

I my opinion, this amp is the end all, be all of guitar amplifiers. In fact, I am becoming obsessed with these amps. They are one of the most UNDER-RATED tube amps ever made (which is good because that keeps the price of them down).

I'm poor and needed a good tube amp so I picked this one up on a whim. I play mostly gritty punk rock but also do clean stuff on the side and this Sunn is CLEAN. Lots of headroom in the 6550 tubes and the mid boost transforms the tone from bright and clear to sharp and gritty. Tremolo has rate and depth and sounds sweet, that, with the huge spring reverb tank makes for some great surf-style if that's your thing.

I play this with a Gibson Les Paul with a 500T bridge pick-up, and occasionally with a Fender Texas Fat Strat and this amp brings out both guitars' natural signiature tones. You can crank this amp without much break-up (I use a 4X12 cab) but doesn't provide much distortion so if that's what you're looking for you'll need pedals. The spring reverb has the normal noise and pop and the tremolo can be a little noisy at high volume but nothing major. Again I play punk so noise is no big deal.

Built like a tank. I'm poor so I always play without a backup.

What customer support? Sunn is owned by Fender now and lost it's popularity when it went solid state. There are a few dedicated web-based support groups but I would suggest getting to know a local Tube Amp Tech.

Great value for anyone who needs clean tube tone at a low price. If you can find one they're a lot of fun.

this amp was built 3/19/1970
So far this amp has done what it was intended to do provide good clean tone or if you want turn it up past 5 and it gets crunchy.
Both nice sounds, I use it for bass not for guitar,
I forget how many channels it has I think 2 but I might be wrong.
it has non of those new channel switching features on it that rob you of tone. The feature i wish it had i really can't say anything about that. the one featre i use rarley is tremelo.
I use this amp because it is a tube amp has alot of low end and is huge. It seems to have enough power right now it could do medium size gigs i would think small ones no problem.
This is the best tube amp I have owned.

the Pickups I use are bartolini P-bass pick up's
and Noiseless american jazz deluxe pick up's
I feel the Jazz bass really makes the amp crazy.

I have only had one probelm, that problem was when I took the amp out of the case and the cheap russian tubes got too much shock and stoped working.
I have done a complete resto on it, but it still looks original.

I just have my amp tech do the hard stuff.
I could do it my self but i feel leave it to a pro.
this thing has no warrenty it is from 1970.
But it is a simple amp and you can find alot of the parts.

If it were stollen i woul buy a sunn 2000s the louder bigger model.
I love the amp becuase it has the vintage look and the big heaping tubes.

I bought this amp used in 1974, so my guess is it was made in the late 60's. The previous owner spray painted the tolex of the case a royal blue. I didn't care for the color, but it didn't affect the performance of the amp. I used it with a 2/12 cabinet and it was a great amp for surf music and the old Duane Eddy stuff.

At the time I owned this amp, my only guitar was an early 70's Fender Strat with the large headstock and the chrome "bullet" truss rod. That's one I should have held on to. The Sunn Solarus and the Fender Strat seemed to be made for each other. This amp had great reverb and tremolo, two effects essential for surf music.

This is the category where this amp flunks. While playing Johnny B. Goode at a party with the volume on 6, smoke rolled out, the sound died, and the power tranformer was fried. This was the night I'll always remember as "The night the music died" I stuck it up in my attic and replaced it with an Acoustic 130 4/10 combo.

Sunn was out of business when this amp died. About 15 years later, I found a local music store that specialized in tube amp repairs. They were not able to find a schematic for this amp anywhwere. Without the schematic, they did not know what power transformer would interchange.
They had a Sunn Solarus in good working condition for sale at $150.00.
After going through the problems with the first one, I was reluctant to take a chance on another one. When this music store went out of business, they still had my amp. I had taken the chassis out of the case and took it to them, so I still have the case and the reverb tank. The case has been painted black again and really looks good. Too bad I don't have the rest of the amp to put back in it. Since Fender bought out Sunn, they don't have any of the old schematics. I heard that the new Sunn amps are awesome, but so is the price! I'll stick with Fender,Peavey and Crate.

I loved this amp while it was working, but after it died, it was impossible to find replacement parts or a schematic.

This was my father's from when he used to play guitar. This has two Power Tubes and two preamp tubes. I'll probably replace them by the end of the summer seeing as they've been in there for over thirty years. Built in reverb and tremelo. 4-Band EQ with rate and depth for tremelo, and setting for reverb.

I play through this with either an Epiphone LP or an old Hofner hollowbody. This has a great vintage sound, the tremelo and reverb sound great. I play everything from Metallica to Led Zeppelin through this thing and it sounds great, especially using the fuzz boost on the Hofner.

I would gig with it if I have a band. I play with a drummer and another guitarist and I've used a small Crate amp because I don't want to haul a half stack over to someone's house. Whenever my drummer comes over to my house we use this and it easily drowns him out.

Never dealt with them, I hear that Sunn is coming back though.

I would recommend this amp to anyone, and I hope it lasts as long as it already has so I can pass it to my son (or daughter) like my father has passed it to me.

1971 sunn solarus.single channel 50watt head.2 bright 2 normal imputs.
vol,treb,bass,contour(mid),tremolo,mid-boost,reverb,standby, polarity,power.rear plate l-r is ac cord,circuit breaker push button,
1/2 power switch(not stock),reverb tank imputs,trem f/s imput,
rev f/s imput,8 ohm imput,4ohm imput.2 el34 tubes.solid state pre-amp.
ok,some history:7 years ago i bought a music man 65 head for 100 bucks.
it didn't have enough power so i traded for the sunn solarus.
mucho power!i was using it as a bass rig!.i put it through
3 nights rehearsal and 1 gig a week in a very loud rock band
for three years.amp never flinched!then i moved to nyc and decided to play guitar.switched 6550s to el34s for more amp overdrive
about 3 months ago and here we are in the present.so here we go...
this amp rips! i play loud rock and roll and the overdrive from
this amp is astonishing.because there is no master vol,i do have to
crank it up.fine by me.live i turn cab toward side or rear wall
and get it from the moniters.i can still hear it without the moniters!
gets nice clean tones,but must control with guitar vol if you're switching back and forth.i'm still getting used to this,but am enjoying the challenge! no vol=no crunch=minus 1 pt;no channel switching=minus 1 pt

i use an ibanez les paul copy with gibson les paul bridge pick up.
a boogie 1 12" celestion brings the noise.for loud rock-vol 5,
treb 3,bass 5,contuor 5,mid boost always on=stadium rock!
the overdrive sags a hint,drips almost.classic sounding not brutal
at all.big crunch,though.i kick a fulltone fulldrive 2 for leads.
amp is a hair dry in sustain dept.for cleaner stuff-vol 2,treb 3,
bass 10 contour 3=country style.amp begins to break up on 3 slightly(blues).by 4 we're talking gritty.by 5 it's full on rock power.
amp is never noisy unless i'm standing next to my computer.
the reverb sounds great.from subtle room to a canyon!
tremolo is nice and wavy but doen't seem to kick in until 4.5
minus 1 pt for sustain;minus 1 pt for tremolo

built like tank.have gigged without a back up.

sunn long dead and gone.fender now owns.
haven't called fender but i did post a question on
a sunn amp site and conrad sundholm(founder)himself
answered!

i've been playing bass for 19 years.guitar
for 15 years.consider myself a "real"guitar player
for past 4 years.i play every day.
i also own a '65 fender tremolux head and 2 10" cab.
if this was lost or stolen i'd be bummed.
i would def get another.
there are a bunch of amps i'd like to own.
deluxe reverb,tone king,vibro king.
however,i stumbled on to the sunn solarus
very cheaply and am very happy i did.
i would not sell this amp.
i do wish it had a hint more sustain for solos.

As far back as I can remember, this amp had volume, treble, bass, contour (which, electronically, was designed as an upside-down mid control), reberb, and trem speed+intensity dials. The amp was running with unmatched OLD 6L6GCs, BUT, the +560V on the plates made so it was STILL pushing a *measured* 72watts... Now how's that for running on the brinks! The amp was supposed to use EL34s or 6550s though, which would've (with 6550s) probably given something like 130W... That guy from the Kingsmen knew what he was doing!

This amp was used by my bass player through a '60s Fender 1x15 cab, but it just wasn't loud enough. She traded it a year ago for a Ampeg that had twice the 6L6GCs, but that *only* produced 73watts (grumble). 'Twas a very bad trade because the Sunn had the BEST sounding and most versatile tremolo I have ever heard. It's a transistor tremolo, but it could do percussive-style VOX trem as well as smooth power-tube-ish tremolo. Wow! What a sound... Oh, and the amp sounded REAL nice and clean too! Turn it up to 8, and it would crunch up really nice.

I was always affraid this amp was gonna blow up because of the old tubes, but it always held through just fine. When I'll buy it again (I know who has it heh heh), I'll slap some KT88s in there, and get that 130W!! Oh yeah, it had the BIGGEST transformers I had ever seen, so lots of power was on tap. The standby switch was dirty though, so sometimes the amp wouldn't turn on.

Dunno.

This was a great amp, and I'm gonna buy it again VERY soon. The fellow who has it now is selling all his gear to buy a MESA or something. Ugh... If you find one, try it out.

late 60s i think 69 all tube head with 2 x 12 sunn speaker cab. simply the best amp i've ever heard in my life. a lot of bass even if it's an open back cabinet and a rich bright tone.
Front panel: volume, treble, bass, contour, depth and rate (effect) and a spring reverb. 4 inputs (2 bright ans 2 normal) i only
use the normal section cause the bright id too bright! the tremolo effect on it is vey fine.

my guitar is an Ephiphone Les Paul custom with 2 Seymour Duncan alnico proII humbuckers and i use a Boss Metal zone distortion with it. that's it! i'm using it for heavy, rock, blues, jazz and its amazing! pretty versatile. perfect sounding for every style!!!

i can't live without it! i will never use an other amp.

Sunn is back, but i don't know if they offer suppurt for old models!

i'm playing since 1990 and i'm using it since that time.My father bought it used in 1969 (225$ CAN)and he gave it to me in 1991.(what a gift!!)I have tried other amps like Fender, marshall, peavey ... but
The Sunn Solarus the best one!

Late 60's 50 Watt tube head. Dual inputs with bright and normal. Volume, bass, treble and countour knobs. Swithcing for reverb and tremolo. I use this amp as a clean channel and I have a Marshall JCM800 for the crunch channel

I'm using a Fender USA Strat with Lace single coil pick-ups. This is certainly one of the best sounding amps I have ever heard. The amp has 6L6's in right now although it's supposed to have EL34's. I never really tried at high volumes. It was broken when I got it and I just got it fixed recently so I haven't had the chance to crank it.

It's a very old amp. The tech that fixed it said there was a bad welding job on a connection and there was also a preamp tube that wasn't working. But as far as reliability goes you can't really expect much from an amp that's been moved around a lot.

I know Sunn is back in business but they're not making this amp anymore.

I've been playing for 5 years now and I went through a few amps and I think I know my stuff pretty well. I'm not kidding when I'm saying this amp sounds awsome! I've never seen info on this amp on the net before so I don't I could find one again. Truly a collector's amp. This amp has all you need although I wouldn't mind the amp being 100 watts