CineMag

[Wordsushi]

I ordered some transformers from Cinemag and since I live nearby, I chose to drop by to pick them up once they were ready. David Guerin was there and man, what a super nice guy. He gave me and my son a tour of the factory and I gotta tell you, it blew my mind how much goes into the simple transformer. David said that every employee trains for at least 6 months before they are allowed to do anything important and most don't even begin winding transformers for two years. I watched one guy just shaving all the tiny plastic burrs off a tiny plastic transformer spindle by hand with a razor blade and that's all he was doing. David and I were talking about imports and exports and he was telling me about how many of their transformers they send directly to China which I thought was cool when you consider how much more just in worker's wages it must cost to make a transformer here in California. The level of craftsmanship that goes into their work is pretty neat in today's world and David Guerin is such a nice dude. Overall, I came away even more impressed with CineMag than I had been before.

I know some folks have said they have trouble getting responses from Cinemag via email so, based on my experience, my suggestion would be to try and email during Pacific Standard Time business hours when David is there. I've always gotten responses from him pretty quickly but it seemed fairly clear that he has a very busy inbox. In January 2018, they are also moving to a larger facility a few miles away so that may also cause some temporary communication delays, but overall, whether you call or email him, in my experience, David will take care of you and answer your questions.

 

[Matador]

David is also super open to doing custom winds in lower quantites, since everything is done by hand anyways.

 

[ruffrecords]

David is also super open to doing custom winds in lower quantites, since everything is done by hand anyways.

Absolutely, he has done a custom output transformer for. He is the most accommodating guy you could find.

Cheers

Ian

 

[ShaneSBG]

I 2nd and 3rd that...I emailed him a question about a few different things and he's always gotten right back to me. Very accommodating guy I found. Because they are all done by hand it takes a minute to get what you order, so its not an "off the shelf" thing (at least that was I experienced..he even said that I was fortunate they were already making a few of what I ordered, 2461 NiCo for a D-47, so I didn't need to wait as long and it was still a couple of weeks or so I think0... I had a great experience with him/Cinemag as well

 

[emrr]

I managed to catch him on a day when he talked at length about everything under the sun, but absolutely would not quote me a price on anything I inquired about from the stock offerings.  Extremely strange, have never inquired again. 

 

[Wordsushi]

I managed to catch him on a day when he talked at length about everything under the sun, but absolutely would not quote me a price on anything I inquired about from the stock offerings.  Extremely strange, have never inquired again.

Huh... that is odd. I wonder why? My experience with David is that anytime I've asked, he's given me a price. Plus, I did it in an email so it was in writing.

 

[emrr]

It didn't make any sense.  I was trying to buy a few stock items, and also trying to lay out parameters for a potential custom order transformer in the 10-20 piece range.  He even dug into files and talked parameters for awhile.  Brick wall, no follow up.  No one else seems to have had that experience.