Empty Pockets
BadHairDayologist
I'm sure some of you may have noticed that I have recently been really into amps. I've got a stack for every possible size and scenario and it's pretty sweet, I dig it. But I live in a town where a lot of the gigs are in smaller bars and clubs that don't want to see stacks, and frankly my Nissan Sentra isn't always easy to cram a 4x12 cabinet into. I've been doing my homework and figured I'd wait out a good deal on an Orange Rocker 30 or one of the elusive Hovercraft 1x12s... or just buy an Orange 1x12 cab and run my Micro Terror into it. Then a dude on the Sunn Amps Owner's Group on Facebook posted this thing up aaand it turned out he was local.
Late 90's / 2000-ish Fender-era Sunn T50C. Other internet posts by randoms say it's basically the same as any of the Fender Pro Tube series amps from the same era, but this one happens to match my vintage Sunn gear cosmetically which is super hip and trendy right now :smokin:
So it's 50w combo loaded with a Celestion G12H-75, with a "Low" mode that the manual online says brings it 12.5w. I have only had it in the 12.5w mode and it is loud as a ****ing ****. The clean channel is that very bright, twangy, clean as clean can clean Fender clean clean tone. The spring reverb is pretty sweet without being over the top. I haven't tried to make it surf out yet... Maybe I will when I finish building my Jazzmaster. The gain channel is nice. It's meaty, it's thick and crunchy, it's balanced. It doesn't really remind me of anything. I didn't say "Oh it's a Marshall tone" or "Oh it's like a Mesa" and it doesn't sound like my 70's first gen model T that it's named after. Gain on 10 is heavy enough for hardcore or doom or whatever you currently think the heaviest form of metal is. I dialed it back to 3 or 4 and got a nice 70's crunch that worked great for some bluesy rockin riffing. I don't want to call it "generic distortion" but I don't really know what to compare it to so I guess it's just... the late 90's Fender reissue Sunn sound. Each channel has footswitchable reverb and independent FX loops with their own return volume knobs so you could theoretically configure this amp to have 4 "channels"... clean and louder clean, dirt and louder dirt. Add all your favorite pedals and the slave output and you've got a little 1x12 box that can do a lot of work for you.
The EQ layout is "treble bass middle" on each channel and that is starting to make me crazy. Why the hell wouldn't you put the "middle" knob in the MIDDLE?! :banghead:
and it doesn't say "MIDRANGE" like on my vintage Sunn (which is still located between Bass and Treble) it says "middle" which is like PUTITINTHE****INMIDDLERAHHHHH
Anyway it looks great, sounds great, I got mine with the original footswitch so that's pretty cool y'know. The cool story attached is that I could only afford this because my mom skipped her usual box of small gifts for my birthday this year and just happened to send me a check. I guess she didn't have time to go shopping? Anyway the things she sends are always awesome, little treats and necessities and whatnot, but this check turned into a good deal on a cool amp. Even cooler was the guy I bought it from works for a major amp manufacturer, one of my favorites actually, so I got to spend the morning hanging out at their warehouse and seeing some behind-the-scenes stuff. It was rad, and it's not the kind of thing mom could've put together herself, y'know?
I played it for a while and love the tone but it was missing a little something. So I tried this:
That's the formula. You need a black and silver American tube amp and a brightly-colored British one. :smokin: stay doomed kids
Late 90's / 2000-ish Fender-era Sunn T50C. Other internet posts by randoms say it's basically the same as any of the Fender Pro Tube series amps from the same era, but this one happens to match my vintage Sunn gear cosmetically which is super hip and trendy right now :smokin:
So it's 50w combo loaded with a Celestion G12H-75, with a "Low" mode that the manual online says brings it 12.5w. I have only had it in the 12.5w mode and it is loud as a ****ing ****. The clean channel is that very bright, twangy, clean as clean can clean Fender clean clean tone. The spring reverb is pretty sweet without being over the top. I haven't tried to make it surf out yet... Maybe I will when I finish building my Jazzmaster. The gain channel is nice. It's meaty, it's thick and crunchy, it's balanced. It doesn't really remind me of anything. I didn't say "Oh it's a Marshall tone" or "Oh it's like a Mesa" and it doesn't sound like my 70's first gen model T that it's named after. Gain on 10 is heavy enough for hardcore or doom or whatever you currently think the heaviest form of metal is. I dialed it back to 3 or 4 and got a nice 70's crunch that worked great for some bluesy rockin riffing. I don't want to call it "generic distortion" but I don't really know what to compare it to so I guess it's just... the late 90's Fender reissue Sunn sound. Each channel has footswitchable reverb and independent FX loops with their own return volume knobs so you could theoretically configure this amp to have 4 "channels"... clean and louder clean, dirt and louder dirt. Add all your favorite pedals and the slave output and you've got a little 1x12 box that can do a lot of work for you.
The EQ layout is "treble bass middle" on each channel and that is starting to make me crazy. Why the hell wouldn't you put the "middle" knob in the MIDDLE?! :banghead:
and it doesn't say "MIDRANGE" like on my vintage Sunn (which is still located between Bass and Treble) it says "middle" which is like PUTITINTHE****INMIDDLERAHHHHH
Anyway it looks great, sounds great, I got mine with the original footswitch so that's pretty cool y'know. The cool story attached is that I could only afford this because my mom skipped her usual box of small gifts for my birthday this year and just happened to send me a check. I guess she didn't have time to go shopping? Anyway the things she sends are always awesome, little treats and necessities and whatnot, but this check turned into a good deal on a cool amp. Even cooler was the guy I bought it from works for a major amp manufacturer, one of my favorites actually, so I got to spend the morning hanging out at their warehouse and seeing some behind-the-scenes stuff. It was rad, and it's not the kind of thing mom could've put together herself, y'know?
I played it for a while and love the tone but it was missing a little something. So I tried this:
That's the formula. You need a black and silver American tube amp and a brightly-colored British one. :smokin: stay doomed kids
