Sunn Studio P.A.

Not so many knobs but who cares when you got clean tone with that much balls.

NOt much variety. Pretty much a one trick pony. But DAMN that is one amazing trick. The sheer thickness, warmth, brightness and volume of this beast is amazing. It breaks up at really high volumes giving it an ACDC tone that is unreal. If you can find speakers to cleanly project all the low end( without using bass amp speakers) it is pretty much the loudest clean amp I've ever played. Just ripe to throw a nice Soldano, Mesa TriAxis, or marshall preamp in front of it to get a seriously powerhouse sound.

Needed the pots cleaned when I got it, but other than that Sunn should have made armored tanks as well as amps. This head is a great design for both.

The head is older than I am. Nuff said.

Just got it. Can't wait to mess around with it in my A/B two amp set up. It'll pound the eardrums.

This amp was built in 1969. It has 4 inputs with individual volumes, bass, treble, master volume, power, polarity and standby switches. It's a pretty basic amp originally designed, obviously, for usage as a PA head, which is what I used it for in my band long ago. But it also doubles as a guitar amp and kicks some pretty major ass in that role as well.

I just play for my own amusement now, mostly heavy, fast rock, but enjoy lowering the volume now and then and taking advantage of the clean 'country' twang the combination of my Strat and this amp provide.The tone you can wring out of any setup is a combination of guitar, amp, controls and accessories, and of course, speaker and cabinets. I use a minimum of gadgets and manage to make this combo pretty versatile. I use a Crybaby wah and sometimes an Electroharmonix Screaming Bird treble booster. When using the tb, you must cut the master treble at least in half or you'll get uncontrollable feedback. Regulated properly, you can make this baby scream. My speaker setup is a bit unconventional, I built the cabs and installed two 12" Jensens, insulated, divided and front-ported, and an extension cab with 1 12" G80 Celestion, insulated and rear-ported. I like to place this cab 6 or 8' from the mains, and together, with the master volume on 5 and input on about 8, this rig cranks out loads of fat, grungy midrange with plenty of bottom and nice, sweet highs. The distortion is natural and doesn't begin to break up until you crank both volumes all the way up. There is a bit of hum around 7 or 8 on all channels, but oddly it disappears when turned all the way up.

Are you kidding? This amp is 33 YEARS OLD and still WAILS! Granted, it hasn't been played constantly in that time, but he still has all his ORIGINAL tubes and beside needing a shot of Tuner Control once in a while, has needed ZERO maintenance. Sunns are legendary for their ultra-reliability and toughness.

Don't know if Fender offers any, find a good tube amp man.

Been playing for 30 years. Own a Fender Strat and a 1964 Airline. Dont know if I could find another but would definitely seek one out. I love it's power, simplicity and reliability. There are a lot of great amps out there, but to me there are only two which have a true mystique, a real magical quality about them which is a little hard to define. Marshall of course, and my very favorite, Sunn.

Definately early Sunn (late 60's?) with a 5AR4 rectifier, two large transformers, 2 KT 88s, 3+1 12AX7's, and four instrument inputs. Nothing can touch a nice handbuilt tube amp. I only wish this amp were a little more 'stable'. The huge plate voltage (500+ volts?) make it a bitch to find capacitors for. KT 88's are NOT cheap and don't offer a great advantage in sound that I can see. Also, the amp has been touched up in a sloppy way by some stoned loser in the 70's (I'm guessing) who couldn't solder his way out of a paper bag.

On the positive side- this amp kicks ass. One of the channels is wired into another- and the insuing saturation is gritty like Fender but with more punch like Marshall. It's a natural big rock sound. But I'm still getting a backup!

It's really warm and punchy, but limited to the rock sound. The natural distortion is not crunchy like a marshall, it is more gritty, but not the sissy-boy fender sound. This is REAL AC/DC stuff kids! Take it from someone who knows how to rock harder then Robert Smith...... (barely).

I'd use a backup, and have an extra fuse and rectifier on hand in case it blows.

this is a vintage amp, like they could give a crap less about me- and Sunn hasn't made a decent amp since the 60's. (No, the new Model T is an overpriced piece of crap)