But then, and there's always a, "but, then," I saw it on Craigslist. It was advertised as a Sunn Solos 2, possibly being made from 1969-1974. I am a huge fan of Sunn amplifiers. In fact, I own a Sunn Alpha 212R that has never let me down. I knew I had to have this amp.
I talked to the owner on and off. I was trying to trade equipment for it, but he wanted cash. I drove about as far as I could drive to South St. Petersburg without driving into the water. Truthfully speaking I was dang close to the saltwater.
He let me check out the amp. I have to admit, it didn't sound great. It was supposed to be a copy of the Fender Twin Reverb, but with a solid state power section. It did have three tubes in the pre-amp section. That made this one of the earliest hybrid amps I had ever seen.
I started checking it out, and was kind of disappointed. I saw a few things that needed repair. Honestly, it was both good and bad. The speakers were completely shot. As in, they were rusted and falling apart. The power cord had tape wrapped around it, so I knew that needed replaced. As old as it was I'm sure it needed a solder job. It also made an insanely loud hum whenever the reverb was turned up.
Now here's the funny math. Do I buy this amp at a discount, but have to invest so much into it that would cost more than I could actually buy a Twin Reverb? However, I can go to any Guitar Center or Sam Ash and buy a Fender Twin Reverb. I can have them search their inventory and have them ship me certain models of the Twin Reverb any day of the week.
What I can't do is buy this amp any time or place. To be honest, I had never even heard of this amp. I had never seen one, and this was the first time I was ever playing one. So what do I do? Do I buy the ultra rare amp from a company I love, or do I buy the time tested best known Fender amp?
I decided to buy the Sunn amp, and here's why. The seller already had it lower than market value. He then knocked the price down again. I knew I would have to acquire two new speakers for the amp. The good news was I already had one that was perfect for it.
So I bought the amp, and headed directly to ProAudio Electronics Tampa. Mike J. has run the shop for a long time, and absolutely knows what he's doing. Rex, the tech who would be working on the amp came out, and looked it over. He pointed out where a cap was leaking and needed replaced. He noticed the tape wrapped around the power cord, and said that wouldn't pass inspection. I agreed.
I told him he had plenty of time to work on it since I was headed out hunting. I told him I had one speaker for him, and would order the other one. He should just worry about getting it working, and he could add the speakers last. I then headed out hunting two days later.
In the middle of the next week we talked on the phone. He told me that three (out of six) of the caps needed replaced. Also, one of the speakers was completely dead, and the other one was in bad shape. It also needed a solder job in some places, plus the standby switch needed replaced. I told him to go ahead and get it working.
Before I had left, I bought a Jensen C12K speaker for the amp off of Reverb.com. I already had a WGS G12C/S sitting at the house. So while I was hunting, I had my Mom drop off the speakers to ProAudio Electronics. That gave them a chance to play it, and see how it sounded. If there were any problems they would be able to hear them, and sort out the problem.
Once I made it back I was able to play it at the shop. Two of the guys said I'd better not leave that amp around the shop much longer. They liked it too much. As I tested it out I had to say it was very different from the amps I usually play.
It had a very interesting clean sound. It wasn't tinny like so many clean amps are. It had a full sound, but was clean. When I turned it up it started to slightly overdrive. It completely took me back to an era before my time. I could hear that vintage sound that defined so many artists.
Rex the technician told me something that I had completely missed. He told me that this amp wasn't the Sunn Solos 2 as had been advertised. It was the first model from 1969, the Sunn Solos, version 1. That meant that this one didn't have an X20 circuit. The X20 would engage a circuit that would add distortion to the amp. The only problem was that you couldn't control the amount of distortion. But since this model didn't have it, I didn't have to worry about that.
I checked out the serial number, and realized that it read 001XXX. As in, it was only around the 1000th amp ever made by Sunn. In other words, this was an early model. I tried to find information about it on the internet. It turns out there are very few things written about the Sunn Solos 2. There is almost nothing written about version one.
The only thing I could find that was they made versions one and two in 1970. After that, they strictly made version 2. I was on a music forum where I read a post from a musician who had bought one new in 1970. He said back then the Solos amps were more expensive than Fender Twin Reverbs. I have to say that surprised me.
So here are the photos:
It's in what I could call "good" shape. It's roughed up a bit, but I wouldn't call it fair or poor. Something equipped on this amp that I have never seen on another amplifier is a control for depth and rate of the reverb. I've seen depth and rate for a tremolo effect, but never a reverb.
It took me a while to find the right setting for the reverb. The reverb is not very deep at all. The Twin Reverb beats it hands down. However, with the rate and depth controls it acts like a tremolo/reverb if that makes any sense. I ended up putting the reverb to 10, the rate to 10, and the depth to 7.
Rex explained that the depth control grounded the signal. So the more you turned it up, the longer the delay between notes. So it was acting like an analog delay. It was very subtle below 7. Once it was turned up beyond that, it had some serious delay.
Here are photos of the speakers.
I have to say these were the perfect speakers for this amp. I was worried that the WGS wouldn't be bright enough for this amp. It actually hadn't been very good in a few other amps I had, but it was perfect for this.
I didn't have to worry about the Jensen since it came standard in the old Twin Reverbs. I did notice that both speakers needed broke in a bit. They were very stiff. Once I adjusted the EQ, and played the amp a bit, they started to sound better.
Oh, remember how I said the other speakers were shot? Yeah, here's what they looked like.
You can see why I wasn't worried about replacing them. Also, they weren't original to the amp anyway.
I've been writing this blog since 2008, and it kind of surprises me which of my blog posts end up getting large amounts of views. I think this is going to be one of those posts that ends up continually receiving views since there are so few pages dedicated to the Sunn Solos amps.
There used to be a webpage called the "Sunn Muesum," but I think the owner took it down. It had a great amount of information about Sunn products. I'll admit, I would have liked to have seen what it had to say about the Solos amps.
But for now I am happy to have an awesome amp to play. It takes pedals really well. It probably goes without saying that my Biyang reverb pedal sounds like an angel coming through the amp. Every one of my overdrive pedals work well with it. So, basically I am having a lot of fun trying all sorts of settings and sounds. It's so much fun I might not have to buy another amp. Yeah, I'll keep telling myself that.
No comments:
Post a Comment