What do you think of sunn amps??

[Alexilaiho]

Specifically the sunn model T

[VTEC_Dreams]

I love Sunn amps.

 

 

[doomedfuzz]

I've owned a 1984 Sunn Enforcer and currently own a Sunn Beta Lead 2x12 combo. Both are amazing amps, some of the best I've played.The other guitarist in my band has a 1973 first generation Model T, so I get to hear every couple of weeks when he breaks it out (he roates the Model T, a 1976 Orange OR120, and a 1998 Matamp "Black" GTO120). All of his amps are "holy grail" amps in my opinion. He also has a sweet a 2006 Orange Rockerverb 100 with factory Mercury Magnetics components before they mandated they stopped being assembled in the USA and moved all assembly to the UK and used Demeter chokes and transformers instead. It sounds different than my 2007, more grit to it - meaning it sounds better in my opinion.

I almost bought a 1975 Red Knob Model T just this week. The dude would only text and not give me his name, it was a long drive (3 hours to get it), and he was horrible at communicating and kind of gave me a bad vibe, so I decided to not do it, but was a pretty good deal for someone locally to him I suppose. But that was good, a Matamp "Black" GT1 came along a day later and I'll be getting that within the week it looks like!

His Model T is an amazing sounding amp, it really has to be cranked to get the tone we like, but once there, it is godly. It has an overdrive that while very vintage sounding, also has that stoner rock/doom fuzzed out tone that we love. It will punch you in the gut with the fuzz and volume for sure. I don't think it needs any kind of dirt, but he like to hit it with a BAT Pharaoh to send it into even more godly territory. It has the 5 inputs, in order to get it where it needs to be, he plays in the middle which is like jumping all of the channels together from what I understand. Some pix I found of his, this first one is from the back of the amp lol and it says it all. It is a non-master volume amp and thus is really LOUD. If you are not used to non-master volume amps, just know this - they have to be really cranked in order to get them into natural overdrivne territory.

Here is a pic of his main three amps

The Sunn Enforcer that I had and sold last year to fund a Model T that never ended up happening, so yeah I regret that sale, (was a 4yr only model made in the early 80s and had a total production run of heads and combos (2x12) of only 150 total units over the 4 yrs). It was switchable from 60 to 100 watts. Rare but not super collectible or expensive even though recent auctions have seen them starting really go up in value like all Sunn products. Ran on 6L6 tubes and was designed to be a combination of a Fender Twin (Channel A) and a Marshall JCM800 (Channel B) and the footswitch allowed them to be combined, a feature Sunn was known for on several of their amps (such as the Beta Lead). I cooresponded with the engineer who designed the Enforcer a few years back and he told me that Sunn wanted to get that very popular early 80s JCM800 tone but also wanted an amp that was light years ahead of Marshall in terms of reliability. The JCM800s of the day were well known to easily blow tranformers. So they located and used the biggest transormers they could get, and let me tell you, they were monstrous! By building the amp like a tank, the components ended up totally changing the tone of the amp - sounding nothing like a Fender Twin or JCM800, had it's own characterisic and sounded well, more like a Sunn. The overdirve was buzz saw like fuzz - very similar to a Matamp GT series or a vintage Orange. I absolutley loved the super driven fuzz tone with that amp, was killer. The only realy difference between channel A and channel B was that one had a little more high end brightness to it. On the 60 watt mode, it was a little more tamed and could get some nice tones but that was not loud at all. Was hard to get a really good clean tone either, both got dirty really fast. The other issue with the amp was the volume. It just wasn't as loud as I would prefer from a 100 watt Sunn amp. I mean loud is a relative term, I suppose it was loud enough for most people, but for my band, it wouldn't cut through the mix no matter how I dialed it in or how loud I ran it. It was also very sensative to cabs, the only cab I could use that worked for any kind of volume was my vintage early 70s Sunn 4x12. With a Marshall or Orange cabs, very low volume. I recently made an offer to buy it back from the guy I sold it to, it is under consideration at the moment.

Here is a video of the Enforcer - no dirt pedal, all amp

Sunn Beta Lead - one of the best solid state amps ever made, maybe "the best" but that is debatable. Acoustic 260 and 270 guitar heads are amazing as well, Ampeg SS-140 and SS-150 are great too. Sunn Concert Leads kick ass and are loud but need some dirt in front of them to really to get the driven tone I like.

The Beta Leads are maybe one of the loudest guitar amps ever produced, I mean just devestating. That 2x12 combo will keep up with a dimed Model T or Matamp GTO120! And it's on 4! Buzz from the Melvins is a well known Beta Lead player as are the guys from the band Red Fang. Amazing reverb built in also. 2 channel, cleans are OK, but the drive is where it is is at with these amps. No pedals needed at all, but they do take pedals well. I keep one channel on clean and one driven. They are very difficult to get to play at a low volume, but I do. The video below is from several years ago (crappy playing) and is from the middle of the night so volume is low as to not wake up the wife and kiddo. Gives you an idea of the tone though, was using an Epi Les Paul that I keep lying around. I used to upload lots of these little videos but people wanted to comment more on my improv playing or just jamming to remember riffs than the gear I was using - so I stopped. Still, this thing has 8,000 plus views lol. If they want to hear real playing, just check my band CDs or our live videos.