BOXING THE THIELS: A Sort Of Tutorial:
As this is something of a knowledge dump for Thiel speaker owners, I figure I may as well relay my recent packing experience with the big 3.7s. Who knows, maybe it will come in handy for someone down the line selling their Thiels, or even shipping them to be serviced. I include advice from Rob Gillum of coherentsourceservice who helped guide me through some of this.
At least in case of the larger Thiel speakers like the 3.7, they were shipped upright strapped to a pallet, from Thiel. That’s also how I received my second hand pair of 3.7s.
When unboxing...take photos! For reminders during re-boxing at some point.
Here’s how packing my 3.7s went:
Placed the blue foam fitted base (which has plywood attached to the bottom) on the floor, and then placed in the speakers standing upright into that base.
Secured the grills to the speaker. Rob mentioned a couple of large rubber bands that would go around the speaker securing the grills for shipping. I presume those are normally supplied in the shipping but I guess I never got any. So I simply made long rubber bands by attaching a series of smaller ones around the speaker.
Next I did a couple layers of thick bubble wrap around the speaker.
Then placed the plastic bag (comes with shipping) over the speaker.
Next, carefully slipped box over the upright speaker. NOTE: As recommended by Rob, I made sure the box side with the serial number and finish description were at the BACK of the speaker. Doing this helps as a reminder as to which way the speaker is oriented in the box, so if you have to lay it down you can make sure it’s going on it’s back, vs mistakenly laying it with the drivers facing down.
Placed in the 4 corner braces in to the corner of the speaker box. (They slip right down past the blue-Styrofoam, in between the corner of the blue foam base and the inner speaker box).
Put the molded Styrofoam stabilizer on the top cap of the speaker.
The Styrofoam base has on top 4 molded indents in to which the spikes for that speaker are placed. I placed them in there securing with some blue-tack and then packing tape over those spikes, to prevent any shifting during shipping. (Shouldn’t happen of course if the box is kept upright. Though you have to tilt it anyway - see last step).
Closed up the top, secured the box flaps with packing tape.
FINALLY: THIS is the part that threw me initially. I now had to seal up the bottom box flaps, which meant tilting the speaker on to the ground on it’s back. BUT....when tilting the speaker to it’s back, the speaker slips out a bit, so the bottom base board is sticking out. That sucker will NOT be pushed back in when the speaker is just lying on it’s back. We tried tilting the bottom of the speaker box up a bit to try to shuffle the end in, but it wouldn’t budge. My intuition was that I wouldn’t want to tilt the box upside down as the speaker wasn’t made to have it’s weight upside down.
But....that was my mistake. (And I’m trying to save anyone else from this mistake).
Rob then told me the top cap was very strong, and it was fine to tip the box upside down, speaker on to it’s head, and in fact you have to in order to get the speaker fully in. So we did that and...viola! It worked. The speaker only finally shuffled all the way in to the box once it was vertically upside down.
After which we could seal up the bottom of the speaker box with packing tape. Then return the speaker to standing upright.
And that is the tale of boxing one speaker.
I have another one to box this weekend.
