Hi Sandy: after you Sunn warms up, take a look at the output tubes ... unless they are glowing too red ... or, as mine were doing briefly ... glowing blue .. or, unless your guitar/s sound oddly out of tune, you probably don't have any bias problems. You must have got a thrill looking at all that Sunn gear in that Steppenwolf(?) pic!
I got into guitar amps through the side door; tube stereo equipment. Back then, my idea of big power was an AR D-76 w/ four 6550s and another working as a voltage regulator. It drove the mid-range and tweeters in a pair of bi-wired Vandersteen 2Cis while a PS Audio 2C handled the bass. Through a stroke of luck, I had a client who couldn't pay my fees so instead he 'paid' me with a Marantz 7C pre-amp and Marantz 10B tuner both in their factory walnut cabs around which I built my system.
Anyway, there's a lot of tone to be had in single-ended 5 watt and twin-engine 10-15 watts amps; they can also be pushed to distortion at listener-friendly volumes ... what they might lack in brag-factor, they make up in lush, even-order harmonics. From Steve's thread on his in-bound Radical-Shacque Univox U45B: A lot to like from a pair of 6BM8s putting out 10 watts.
And ... at the risk of over-cooking the low-power commercial here: link to a demo of the six brown beauties listed below:
Gibson Skylark (single-ended 6V6 until 1963),
Supro Super (year unknown; early models single-ended 6V6),
Gibson BR-9 (gone after 1953; twin 6V6s out and a transformer for a phase inverter),
Alamo Model 3 (details ??),
Univox U-185 (details ??), and
another unidentified '50s Supro.
As a famous non-musician once said: "Small is Beautiful"
Cheers, John
I got into guitar amps through the side door; tube stereo equipment. Back then, my idea of big power was an AR D-76 w/ four 6550s and another working as a voltage regulator. It drove the mid-range and tweeters in a pair of bi-wired Vandersteen 2Cis while a PS Audio 2C handled the bass. Through a stroke of luck, I had a client who couldn't pay my fees so instead he 'paid' me with a Marantz 7C pre-amp and Marantz 10B tuner both in their factory walnut cabs around which I built my system.
Anyway, there's a lot of tone to be had in single-ended 5 watt and twin-engine 10-15 watts amps; they can also be pushed to distortion at listener-friendly volumes ... what they might lack in brag-factor, they make up in lush, even-order harmonics. From Steve's thread on his in-bound Radical-Shacque Univox U45B: A lot to like from a pair of 6BM8s putting out 10 watts.
And ... at the risk of over-cooking the low-power commercial here: link to a demo of the six brown beauties listed below:
Gibson Skylark (single-ended 6V6 until 1963),
Supro Super (year unknown; early models single-ended 6V6),
Gibson BR-9 (gone after 1953; twin 6V6s out and a transformer for a phase inverter),
Alamo Model 3 (details ??),
Univox U-185 (details ??), and
another unidentified '50s Supro.
As a famous non-musician once said: "Small is Beautiful"
Cheers, John