1. If you would like to place an amp / guitar order, just email me any questions that you may have. Once we have all specifications to your liking I will email a quote for the cost of the amp / guitar. All that is required to get the build in queue is 1/2 payment up front (usually Paypal, Check or Money Order) with the final payment plus shipping costs ($30 - $50) due when the build is complete. Depending on my workload and the complexity of the build your amp build will take 3 to 8 weeks based on how many builds I already have in que.
2. I'm no longer a storefront based business and am not doing repairs or modifications on any amps or guitars unless you are willing to ship your item to me and pay shipping via UPS / FedEx both ways. You may want to inquire about the cost of modifications regardless of shipping costs as I'm usually far less expensive than most shops anywhere. Like my amp prices, my labor prices for mods are more reasonable than you would expect.
3. I'm currently only taking orders on new amplifier builds, new guitar builds or relic'ed guitars (yours or a new one). I am no longer relicing factory urethane painted guitars of any kind. The labor to cost ratio involved in stripping and prepping it makes purchasing a new body to relic a much more cost effective option.
4. My amps are warrantied for life to the original owner minus tubes, light bulbs and fuses. Speakers will take on the original manufacturer’s warranty. The amp warranty is void if ANYONE has modified, changed or otherwise manipulated the circuit in any way. The warranty does not transfer and is only available to the original owner of the amp. Amps that have been dropped, abused or mishandled in any way are NOT repaired under warranty.
5. While I try my best to build you exactly the amp that you want I do have limits when it comes to utilizing multiple vendors for various parts. If you have a long laundry list of needs such as vendor - A for capacitors, Vendor - B for transformers, and vendor - C for resistors, etc. What you end up with in the end is NOT a Collins product but a Collins Assembled product. I utilize the sources and parts that I do (Heyboer, Sprague, Mallory, Switchcraft, IC, Alpha, Carling etc.) because I know they work well together and provide amazing tone. If you read my reviews (link on front page) you'll see that others agree and have trusted me to build them an amp that sounds like they want it to. When I source parts from numerous other vendors I have no idea what the final product will react or sound like in terms of attack, touch sensitivity, balance, headroom, and overall usability and tone. For those reasons I reserve the right to not take on a build if you can't trust my proven formulas, parts and products. The majority or requests that I get for these builds are from people who spend way too much time reading internet hype and not enough time playing or honing their skills as a guitarist. The best advice I can give someone who thinks that they need the flavor of the month parts in their new amp is simply this........Jimmi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chet Atkins, Billy Gibbons, Eddie Van Halen, Eric Johnson, Gary Moore, Jeff Beck, Joe Satriani, Ritchie Blackmore, Steve Morse etc, etc, etc.........Never needed ANY of these so called magic tone parts and YOU DON"T EITHER. Open your ears and listen to them, trust them, and stop trying to own and play what bedroom players across the nation who know 3 chords are telling you that you have to have to get great tone. This is one time where more expensive is NOT better, I guarantee it.
6. Capacitors......while I would like to dedicate an entire page to the online cult following certain brands have attained, I'll only say this. 90% of ALL differences in tone between the many varieties of coupling and tone capacitors available can be minimized, trivialized or duplicated, with a simple small turn of the bass, treble, middle, presence or tone knob. The hype and internet chat surrounding some brands is complete 100% BS. Not unlike the hype, marketing, and pricing surrounding some brand name amplifiers. A single mention in Guitar Player, or Vintage Guitar Magazine about the "magic tone voodoo" that a cap manufactured on the same assembly line in China, Malaysia or Korea as 20 others exactly like it selling for 1/10th the price will command the money with ZERO supporting technical data and a simple subjective opinion about tone.
Whatever brand of capacitor that bedroom player A with a solid wood, urethane painted, strung with 9's, humbucker equipped, 20lb, brand X guitar playing through the latest mega watt, $5000.00 tube amp head, tells you that you absolutely must go out and spend $50.00 each on, WILL NOT sound the same as Bedroom player B's semi-hollow, nitrocellulose painted, strung with 11's, single coil equipped, 7lb, brand X guitar playing through a 15 watt, $3000.00 flavor of the month combo amp. I have an analogy for you and then I'll close the capacitor subject. Do you remember that guy in high school who would show up at basketball practice with the snow white clean new sneakers, Jordan(Byrd, DR J etc)jersey, headband, wrist bands, matching knee sock stripes, perfect length roomy new shorts, and an immaculate sprayed hairdo...........that couldn't hit a free throw if his life depended on it? Well that is the equivalent of the internet know it all tone guru that tells you need flavor of the month Brand X caps, or Brand X multi thousand dollar amp. The majority of web guru's probably plays as well as that kid in high school shot basketball, and obviously have more money than they do knowledge about capacitors. Rant Over!
7. The quality of various manufacturers parts continues to decline and as a result will no longer be seen in any amp or guitar with the Collins logo on the front. The latest example is ceramic tube sockets from any manufacturer foreign or domestic. Even the most praised ceramic sockets have gone the way of brittle, fragile, easily chipped units with pins that need constant retensioning to perform correctly. I'm sourcing only Belkin Micalex sockets and retainers from now on which require zero maintenance and are bulletproof in all regards. If you have concerns about parts or have a desire for certain parts let me know at the time the order is placed please. I'm also about to replace the name "sprague atom axial" from my electrolytic capacitor selections. They continue to go through the roof in price. I have thoroughly tested five other brands and all but one has passed with flying colors. Parts costs drive my pricing and I'm fighting to keep prices where they are. The latest huge increase has been alnico (aluminum, nickel, cobalt) magnet steel for alnico speakers.
8. I try to update the website in a timely manner but sometimes it is out of date so please email any questions.
Thanks,
Craig
You would have to travel at the speed of light(186,000 miles per second)for 5 hours and 31 minutes, covering 3.5 billion miles to pass Pluto and get out of our Solar System.
So what's after Pluto? How close is the next object? You would have to travel at that same speed for 5 years, 4 months and 19 Days, and cover 25 Trillion miles, to get to the closest star Alpha Centauri.
100 years of travel at the speed of light finally lands you at the milky way(still in our galaxy obviously). It's not until you travel at the speed of light for 100,000 years that you have a full view of our little galaxy.
5 million light years out you can see 30 galaxies that make up the cluster ours is in. 50 million light years out you begin to see the next cluster of more than 2000 galaxies.
You could travel at that speed for 10 billion years and never stop seeing galaxy clusters.
Have you ever felt really small?