Lucky Old Sunn 215S, Drivers?

[Count Bassie]

Picked up an old, not so rare Sunn 215S cab, and it's loaded with some well-used Celestion PA 15s- it had been run with an old SVT in fact. But I wonder if there any advice on what one would put in it for a nicer, heftier low end and good throw into a room? Also something NEO might be fun...

Thanks for your time.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Count Bassie

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Without reverse engineering the cab and then using a speaker modeling program to determine compatible drivers it's impossible to render anything other than a purely subjective opinion. In other words, a guess, which you'll no doubt receive in droves, most of which will have no more validity than if you were to put a list of drivers on the wall and toss a dart at it...whilst blindfolded.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Bill Fitzmaurice

[Twincam]

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1477831001' post='3164663']
Without reverse engineering the cab and then using a speaker modeling program to determine compatible drivers it's impossible to render anything other than a purely subjective opinion. In other words, a guess, which you'll no doubt receive in droves, most of which will have no more validity than if you were to put a list of drivers on the wall and toss a dart at it...whilst blindfolded.
[/quote]

Indeed. Unless someone has already done exactly this previously to said cab and could give the correct advice.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Twincam

[Dan Dare]

Back in the days before I knew any better, I replaced the 15" drivers in an old 2x15 Bassman cab with Peavey Black Widows when one of the originals blew. Sounded fab' and the BWs didn't die. Sometimes, you get lucky.

[VTypeV4]

It's possible the original drivers were JBL D/K140s - I'm sure I saw an old advert a while back. The JBLs were very much the premium 15" bass speaker of the time and were used by lots of companies in all sorts of configurations irrespective of their box compatability..

I have a K140 in a compatible box and it sounds warm and oldskool in stark contrast to my SWR cabs. I also ran a D140 in an old Peavey TNT 130 for a while which was warmer and louder than Scorpion it replaced.

I have a hankering for a Bassman 135 and matcing double 15 with JBLs in too..

[Dan Dare]

I drove mine with a Bassman 135. Lovely rig, but big/heavy and needed my Volvo estate to get it around. Great days.

[Phil Starr]

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/sunn-215s-speaker-identification.827206/ look at post 10. The S indicated Sunn's own drivers.

It wouldn't be difficult to reverse engineer the cab to find a good match, I don't suppose there was anything very special about the drivers. Peavey Black Widows would be a good cheap option if a bit heavy. You could buy old Peavey cabs and junk the cab if you wanted or there are a few about on eBay. Ideally go for the ones with the metal domes which is what Peavey fitted in their own 2x15 which have a little more sparkle than the other BW models.