shipping speakers

I had an almost indistructable Rel Stentor -as many know, it's got several internal wall to wall braces- that was destroyed by "UPS we droped it". My final guess is that it was droped from at least 30 feet in the air (thats 180 pounds falling from the sky). That was the dealers guess also. A little research with some employees and YES thats very possable because the conveyor belts do go that high at places. The inch thick bottom was compacted one inch into the box! And 5 grand later, UPS would not honor the insurance I fully paid for. Nothing is safe going through UPS. And yes it was factory double boxed.

UPS being the master blasters that they are, managed to damage both cabinets and drivers the last time I shipped with them. Then they refused to honor the insurance because the original boxes were used, and that "reshipping causes the box to lose 50% of it's integrity." It's been pretty well document of course that UPS has lost all of it's integrity!

You wouldnt believe the nightmare Im going through right now. Nothing is safe in transit the guys that load the stuff at ups are way under paid. You think they care how they toss this stuff on a trailer? Be carefull and pick a courier you can trust.

I just got my Wilson Sophia 2's.---One had a forklift tip go through the wood crate.(on the way from Wilson) ---So, shipping speakers can be hazardous to the speaker----no matter how well it's packed. I prefer to buy or sell tube amps and speakers;local. Brand new, at least the dealer and factory will stand behind me--i.e. they get to do the tap-dance with the shipper.

I've been on the receiving end of 2 speaker shipments that UPS damaged. Both were under-packaged in my opinion, but had obviously had been severely dropped. One is a Rel Storm, which was packaged at a UPS Store were destroyed, and they honored the insurance claim. The other was a set of Rega Ela mkII's shipped in the original cartons. They had the plinths split free from the enclosure, but were repairable.

I successfully shipped a pair of Paradigm 7seIII's using UPS only because they were overweight for Fedex. They were packaged in the original Mfg shipping cartons, PLUS I packaged these cartons inside another box surrounded by 3-4" of styro peanuts packed tightly. As I said, they arrived safely, but I was prepared for the possibility UPS found a way to destroy them too.

Finally, I have received small monitor shipments that were delivered un-scathed. Small things seem to do better.