Need info for Sunn cabs

[smathis]

My grandfather gave me two of these cabinets around 10 years ago. He said he bought them used in the early 80's. I'm hoping somebody on here can help me find more information about them, such as a model number and what the plate on the back says (specifically what the 4 separate jacks are for). Please refer to the pictures, and thank you for your time.

 

For whatever reason I'm not able to upload the pictures directly into the post, so here is a link to them:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/P1e1eYDdeA7D71lq1

[WRGKMC]

Those are Sunn Model 9 PA cabs/stage monitors. Sunn made allot of pro gear back in the day with some very unique designs.

 

As far as the jacks go the top two jacks, You can connect an amp head to one then a second cab to the other. The top jacks are in parallel and run both speakers through a built in passive crossover.

 

The bottom two jacks split the two speakers and bypass the passive crossover. I can barely make out HF (High Frequency) on the top of the bottom two so the other must be LF (Low Frequency). You'd likely never use those.

 

It likely looked similar to this. I'd likely make up some labels and mark the jacks to avoid having problems connecting the speakers up.

 

 

 

 

 

These bottom two jacks are used in pro pa rigs where you use an electronic crossover and split the signal into two frequencies before the power heads then run two power amps, one for the lows (Woofers) and one for the highs, (Horns). Biamped and even tri-amped systems (Hi, Lo, Mid) were very common in your bigger PA rigs. This way you had control over the frequencies all the cabs stacks would put out in order to match a room. Its also much more efficient then using built in passive crossovers.

 

With single cabs like that it would make no sense to drive them with two amps and a crossover. You'd just use the top two jacks in either order to connect a PA/power head.

 

 

Sunn made allot of different PA cabs. You had the mains which faced the audience and usually had either full ranged speakers or speakers and horns. Then you had stage monitors which were floor wedges used in front of mics. Then they also made fold-back monitors which set side stage and faced in on the band. Because these cabs are square and have woofers angled up, I suspect they are fold back monitors.

 

They could be the mains cabs for a small PA system too but they don't have horns so they were what you call short throw speakers designed to be used close up to mics. Horns which are long throw would cause mic feedback. I suspect these are late 70's 80's cabs. Before that they only had columns. Big bands like The Who heavily influenced Sunn expanding their gear. As bands grew louder and played bigger venues they needed versatile cabs to meet the need.

 

This one is fairly unique because it is a three way woofer mid and tweeter. Since there is no horn I don't think its a low end PA cab either. My best guess is its either a fold-back or stage monitor. Its likely an ideal monitor for a Drummer. It might sound wonderful as a Keyboard cab as well. Might make an excellent Hi Fi or studio monitor too.

[smathis]

This is great! Thank you so much, I've been looking for this info for years. I'm going to make sure to write on the plate to label it. I'm powering them with a 4 channel Peavey xr400 mixing amp, so I'm going to use both cabinets with my zoom g3n which has a stereo output. Thanks again!