by GP49 Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:26 am
FINALLY a definitive answer:
This was posted on another website by Conrad Sundholm on September 19, 1999. Sundholm is the founder of Sunn, a manufacturer of guitar amplifiers since acquired by Fender.
> My brother Norm was working at a music store in Portland, OR and
> making mods to Fender sealed cabinets by porting them and selling
> them with 60 Bogen PA amplifiers. I helped him with the port size and
> tuning.
>
> The very first cabinets under the Sunn name were dual 15" JBL D130's
> mounted in a 24 wide cabinet with the 15's staggered with two ports
> next to the staggered 15's. I borrowed $1300 from the Portland
> Teachers Credit Union (I was teaching at Centennial High School at
> the time) to purchase plywood, vinyl and JBL speakers. I swung a deal
> with a local dealer to purchase 12 JBL D130's at below retail. The
> rep for JBL canceled him as a JBL dealer because he violated JBL's
> "fair trade" agreement then immediately looked us up and wanted to
> set us up as an OEM account purchasing direct from JBL. I thought
> that was pretty hilarious at the time, but felt bad for the retailer
> who was trying to help us out. I didn't find out about it for a year
> or so.
>
> Anyway, it took me six months to sell those first 6 cabinets. Then I
> had a dream about how to build a bass cabinet. The dream was so vivid
> I got up the next morning and started building the cabinet. It was a
> rear loading bass reflex design which became the 200S bass cabinet.
> This particular unit contained extra bracing which was not included
> in the eventual production version. I then built a piggyback head
> enclosure and stuffed it with a Dynaco Mark II 60 watt tube kit I
> built along with a Dynaco tube preamp. This was Norm's first unit he
> used on the road with the Kingsmen.
>
> It had so much low end! Almost too much. The electronic response
> curves were for HiFi not bass guitars but it out performed anything
> on the market. As Norm traveled across the country playing this
> monster, everyone was asking him were he got this amp. He told them
> to ask their local music dealer to call me and order one for them. I
> started getting calls from Jacksonville, FL; Boston, MA etc. - These
> dealers were ordering 12 at a time - the rest is history.
>
> The original dream became the well respected 200S cabinet. We later
> built our own preamp mounted in the top rear of the piggyback cabinet
> along with the Dynaco Mark III. Later we built it all on one chassis.