What the ship just happened?


Needing a small, but dependable 2-channel amp, I saw one from ATI (AT 602) listed on Audiogon last week. The seller accepted my offer and I was confident things would go well due to his positive feedback. The amp was delivered today, but I was walking my dog down the main street through our town-home complex when the UPS truck pulled up in front of my home. I was about 300 feet away, and I clearly heard the impact when the driver dropped the box onto the concrete surface of my front porch. Of course, he was gone by the time I arrived and saw the box sitting at an angle, with a badly damaged corner (indicating he dropped it that way). The box could be described as being flimsy at best, and I felt my blood pressure rising when I lifted it and could feel the amp free to move around inside. Opening it up, I found the amp extremely well-wrapped in bubble-packing, which just added to my frustration. The amp was only 4" in height, but the box was 13" high and there was

minimal additional packing to keep the amp stationary during transit. I guess the UPS driver took his cue from all this and treated the package accordingly. The amp had a 1/4" chip in the front fascia corner, but survived otherwise. The seller obviously chose a box that he had handy, but one that was totally inappropriate for the job. Looking back, I should have stipulated that the seller use FedEx, but his feedback concerning shipping issues was good, so I felt like everything would be OK. Who was mainly at fault here, and what might have prevented this nagging situation?

discnik

I always double-box. No packaging is safe without it. costs $8 more, and I sleep better, and the buyer is happy. Learned it the hard way when shipped a lot of pottery. 

@jetter +1

nothing like a little salt sprinkled on the wound 

@fuzztone I think that's called being a d**k

It’s pretty simple. If you insist on buying used, out of warranty you can insist on "signature upon receipt" shipping. Or eat it.

@fuzztone 

I bought new. A new Don Sach Kootenay.

it arrived damaged. Combination of bad packing and mishandling.

looking at the box, the only damage was the speaker terminals coming through the outer box. So the moronic packing was the cause.

​​​​Was it mishandled as Don Sachs implied? Maybe. But the packing was not helping. He relied entirely on packing peanuts. Even with double boxing and using good boxes, everything settled and guess what...the speaker terminals went through the inner box and because they must likely 'registered' to the freshly made holes, it want long before they got through the outer box.

it was awful packing job and I blame the packer. 

 

So you see, your advice, being one sentence, was probably a waste of time.