Members PoorOtis Posted June 28, 2018 Members Share Posted June 28, 2018 I have always wanted a Sunn Amp..but..in my younger years they were out of my price range! My Grandson know this a found me a Sunn Stinger 100 Combo amp. It works well for a old amp & its very heavy & can get really Loud for a Solid State Amp! I contacted Sunn/Fender to obtain info on this amp, but was only sent a download for the owners manual from them! This is the only Stinger 100 amp that I have ever seen..or used! I hope that some can lead me more info about this Sunn Stinger 100 Combo amp! Thank You. PoorOtis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted June 28, 2018 Members Share Posted June 28, 2018 Can't help with information but congratulations. Happy New (Old) Amp Day. Post pics if you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted July 2, 2018 Members Share Posted July 2, 2018 Fender bought Sunn in 1985. They built the Stingers in the later 80's and have many similarities to their Red Knob series except they were even more cheaply built. The Fender Red Knob amps weren't horrible, (I own one), but they were one of the least liked line Fender made. The pots and jacks were probably the cheapest on the market. The plastic jacks would break easily and the pots would become noisy early on. Cleaning them only worked temporarily and only a complete replacement which wound up being expensive could fix them. The Sunn amps were the same deal. Huge let down to any vintage Sunn Owner, almost an insult to call those smaller SS amps Sunn. It Hurt the brand permanently. People always compared the vintage amps to the Fender stuff. That likely put pressure on Fender because they eventually did resurrect some of the classic Sunn amps like the Model T and others like the 50T which had similar classic builds. They may have been too well built and hurt the normal Fender lineup. Sunn had some incredibly advanced designs 30+ years before companies Like Vox, Peavey, Marshall and others started doing the same. I have a 1976 Concert Lead which is killer sounding SS amp. The trick Sunn used to make the amp sound tube like was to add a multi tap Transformer wired in between the output transistors to add Induction. These coils combined with FET's work about as close as you can get to having tubes and an output transformer. The amp's clean channel produces a 200W clean tone with practically no distortion. It did have channel switching which was unusual for an amp made in 1976. Its drive channel produces a Leslie West Mississippi Queen type Overdrive. West got that sound when he blew his amp out before a gig and borrowed a Sunn PA head. The circuit used has the same kind of preamp stacking. I've heard many Sunn amps made by Fender in the 80's and 90's as well as the classics. My buddy owns one of the 2X10" Stagemaster amps. It got the clean Sunn sound but was very weak for sound. He paid me to give it a good cleanup because the pots were all scratchy, but even after cleaning it didn't help much. The amps were simply built with the cheapest parts Fender could get its hands on. Not sure what condition your amp is in. You might be able to improve its sound with a better speaker. Sunn used the same black magnet Eminence speakers Fender and Ampeg used for many years. Sunn amps are voiced with a brighter sound, half way between a Fender and Marshall giving those dull sounding Eminence Speakers more presence. The sound was closer to a Music Man amp (another company Leo Fender founded) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mikeo Posted July 3, 2018 Members Share Posted July 3, 2018 I have always wanted a Sunn Amp..but..in my younger years they were out of my price range! My Grandson know this a found me a Sunn Stinger 100 Combo amp. It works well for a old amp & its very heavy & can get really Loud for a Solid State Amp! I contacted Sunn/Fender to obtain info on this amp' date=' but was only sent a download for the owners manual from them! This is the only Stinger 100 amp that I have ever seen..or used! I hope that some can lead me more info about this Sunn Stinger 100 Combo amp! Thank You. PoorOtis.[/quote'] I have never seen one until now. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sunn-Stinger-100-1x12-Guitar-Combo-Amplifier-/332689073030?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D52473%26meid%3D6a6a52efeb0d423a8dc4abd50b3c8640%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D8%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D252434163461%26itm%3D332689073030&_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=4DPYsVcfjum0sd%252FfKMxcB0ccr00%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members capitalist Posted July 3, 2018 Members Share Posted July 3, 2018 FWIW, I played a gig a few years ago on a bill with Steve Cropper and he played a red knob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PoorOtis Posted July 3, 2018 Author Members Share Posted July 3, 2018 WRGKMC... Thank you for the info! Its good to learn about what I have..and where it came from! Respects. PoorOtis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PoorOtis Posted July 3, 2018 Author Members Share Posted July 3, 2018 Mikeo..its the only sunn stinger 100 that I have ever seen also.....I guess at the time it did not have much of a fan base! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted July 4, 2018 Members Share Posted July 4, 2018 All amps should be required to have 4 of these. [ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"kt66.jpg","data-attachmentid":32270421}[/ATTACH] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted July 6, 2018 Members Share Posted July 6, 2018 I bought my M-80 100W Red knob head for under $50 with shipping. Had to replace one of the cheap plastic input jacks. later I removed the head from its gargantuan sized head cab and put it in a 4X10 cab so I had a decent combo I could fit in my Mustang. Like I said, The pots are pretty crappy. I cleaned them once a couple of years ago and they got scratchy about 6 months later. I figured I could clean them one more time then they need to be replaced. Tone wise they aren't bad for a SS Fender amp. Reverb is decent too, but my 67 Blackface Bassman pisses all over it for tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PoorOtis Posted July 6, 2018 Author Members Share Posted July 6, 2018 WRGKMC. No Plastic input jacks on the old Sunn. Its Very Hard to compare a Tube to a SS amp..tube always wins. No Scratchy Pots Either. Whoever had it took very good care of it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PoorOtis Posted July 7, 2018 Author Members Share Posted July 7, 2018 Found out last night..that the Sunn Stinger 100 amp is really a Re-Branded Fender Stage Lead II amp. Both amps are the same! Made in the early 90s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted July 8, 2018 Members Share Posted July 8, 2018 ^^ Fender version of the Stage Lead II were built in Japan between 83~85, prior to Fender buying Sunn. Fender likely kept the chassis design going to keep the Sunn name alive while they tooling up for some of the better Sunn amp Production. The lower end Stingers definitely look closer to the Red knob series. They could have modified the Fender amps with different tone caps to give the amps Sunn voicing which wouldn't be that hard to do, but if they simply had a bunch of NOS to dump they are likely just rebadged Fenders with no voice changes at all. Fender and Sunn tone isn't that much different and any experienced guitarist buying one of those would realize they really don't sound like a Fender or Sunn, just something similar to both. The components and construction styles used to build the Stage amp and the Red knob are pretty much the same. Both came from the same factories in Japan. Cosmetically they look different outside but when you look inside the similarities are obvious. Heres the Stage II Chassis. Modular construction allows the power amp to be used with different preamp boards and vice versa. Black Plastic jacks are obvious here. They are broken off on this one which is their main flaw. One thing you learn as a mechanic. Never combine metal and plastic. The two expand and contract differently with heat and cold and the plastic winds up fracturing like these jacks did. [ATTACH=JSON]{"alt":"Click image for larger version Name:\tspareparts.jpg Views:\t1 Size:\t114.4 KB ID:\t32273467","data-align":"none","data-attachmentid":"32273467","data-size":"full","title":"spareparts.jpg"}[/ATTACH] The Fender London and Pro use nearly identical chassis with a few extra buttons. You can see the metal Nuts, washers and metal insert on the right jack. The metal insert on channel one of this amp has already been lost. That jack will continue to break down with use until it fails and needs replacement. [ATTACH=JSON]{"alt":"Click image for larger version Name:\tfe77f5fa9b62f19dff38c03f745a375d---s-knobs.jpg Views:\t1 Size:\t123.8 KB ID:\t32273468","data-align":"none","data-attachmentid":"32273468","data-size":"full","title":"fe77f5fa9b62f19dff38c03f745a375d---s-knobs.jpg"}[/ATTACH] Here's a red knob 85 chassis. Notice the same Caps, Resistors, FET Power transistors, Plastic jacks being used. Pots varied between amps allot. I saw several pics of the stage amps using plastic shaft pots and others with the metal shaft type. The white PCB boards used below are the newer boards Fender adopted for most of their newer SS amps, even used today. Tube amps tend to use the green fiberglass because they do better with heat. [img2=JSON]{"alt":"Image result for FENDER red knob PCB","data-align":"none","data-size":"full","height":"489","width":"978","src":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-GUmktwt1gk8\/UXo0LoWcosI\/AAAAAAAACtk\/W6TCogwNDMA\/s1600\/%CE%A6%CF%89%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B3%CF%81%CE%B1%CF%86%CE%AF%CE%B11815.jpg"}[/img2] In the end the only thing that matters is how the amp sounds. As I said, SS Fender builds aren't bad and they simply get a bad rap because players prefer tube amps which they also make well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted July 8, 2018 Members Share Posted July 8, 2018 Vintage Sunn's like mine had metal jacks mounted to the panel. Fender builds, you better take another look. The amp is a whole different design. Fender uses plastic PC mount Jacks on all their solid state amps. The Nuts and shafts are metal which makes them look almost like metal jacks but they aren't. Fender only uses metal jacks on point to point tube amp builds, not on solid state amps. You could wire in metal jacks but its a real pain in the backside because there isn't enough room with the way the PCB is mounted to all the pots and jacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted July 8, 2018 Members Share Posted July 8, 2018 All amps should be required to have 4 of these. [ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"kt66.jpg","data-attachmentid":32270421}[/ATTACH] Light bulbs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badpenguin Posted July 9, 2018 Members Share Posted July 9, 2018 All amps should be required to have 4 of these. [ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"kt66.jpg","data-attachmentid":32270421}[/ATTACH] Bottle neck slides? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted July 9, 2018 Members Share Posted July 9, 2018 I think they're for the groupies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cornholio Farquarth III Posted August 11, 2018 Members Share Posted August 11, 2018 I think the Sunn reissues that Fender put out around the early 2000's are worth a look. They are not really Sunn in any sense of the brand, but they are rock solid higher gain tube workhorses. I have the half stack and combo. Love them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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