SUNN amps.
 
 

What can I say, old 60’s SUNN amps occupy a special place in my heart. I used these amps when I was in my early teen’s playing at grade school and high school dances. I grew up in the same city where SUNN amps were made and when SUNN moved to Tualatin, Oregon from Portland the band I was in at the time practiced only a few miles from the SUNN factory. On several occasions late at night we would dig through the dumpsters outside the SUNN factory finding such treasures as SUNN name plates, knobs, tolex, grille cloth and even cabinet pieces.

The sound of a SUNN amp is something that you can’t really describe, you just have to experience it! It’s big, fat, warm and thunderous. When you load up one of these vintage amps with a good set of KT88’s (which they were designed to use with the exception of a couple 40 watt amps like Spectrum) the sound is magnificent!

I collect SUNN tube amps and currently have about 20 pieces including a pair of ‘65 vintage top control heads and a rare 4/15 Magna cab. I still used several pieces of SUNN gear in my studio and at live shows on a regular basis. Some of these amps are shown in the gallery HERE.

In the early 70's Bill Hartzell bought SUNN from Conrad Sundholm and kept up production of the Model T while concentrating more on the solid state amps. Hartzell was bought out by Fender in the early 1980's and shelved.

As for the new SUNN amps which I refer to as "Fender/SUNN" amps they are really nothing like the old SUNN amps. The SUNN T50C and reissue Model T amps are close cousins but share nothing in common with old original SUNN's. This is not to say that the Fender/SUNN amps were not decent amps. The T50C and Model T were not bad and provided a good clean sound as they should (it is a Fender amp) and a decent drive sound. In my opinion the shining star of the Fender/SUNN's was the 300T. This is a monster bass amp that is very versatile and packs a huge punch that I actually prefer over the new SVT's.

With the demise of the Fender/SUNN amps the 300T was dressed in Fender threads and called the Pro 300. Still a great bass amp!