When Will We Learn?

I had a pair of Thiel Viewpoints destroyed in shipping.  The price was great, the shipping was terrible.  In retrospect I should have sent him the packaging.  The price was so low it was clearly someone getting rid of something he didn't care about.  Had I taken an hour or two and made padded boxes he could've just dropped them into it would've been worth it.  

I usually only buy through Audiogon, TMR, USAM and have had very good results, with only a couple of disappointments on shipping issues. I am transitioning from a full suite of Dali Helicons in my main A/V system to Aperion Audio speakers. I found a pair of the excellent 6Ts just an hours' drive from home on Audiogon and will pick them up this weekend (they had been listed for several months and had gone unsold because seller was not willing to ship, evidently). The 6C center  came up on ebay, and it looked like the seller knew his stuff.....the speaker was priced very reasonably and was in pristine condition, with a shipping charge of $83. This was a FL to NC deal (700 miles), and that seemed fair due to the size/weight of the speaker. I couldn't afford to pass it up, because this model is seldom seen for sale, especially in this condition at the listed price ($175). A one-inch layer of solid Styrofoam underneath the speaker would have prevented the damage from happening, and the seller used pieces of that elsewhere in the box, but almost as as afterthought, not strategically placed. He (somewhat) over-protected the top of the speaker and under-protected the bottom.....I should have hired carlsbad2 to warn him that most damage comes from below, not from above. That damage being the result of being dropped from too great a distance, in most cases.

I try to avoid shipping but you can’t always buy locally. I’m in Mass so often times I just go to NH as there is no sales tax. There are a few good dealers that make it worth the trip. Audio Visual Therapy and Fidelis in Nashua are great to deal with.

I just had my second transaction with TMR and it was great , fortunately each piece arrived safe.

Earlier this year I bought an open box turntable from HiFi Heaven and it was so poorly packed I was lucky that it arrived unscathed. Really lucky. It was so ignorantly packed I will never do business with them again. They absolutely did not care.

For used gear I only buy and sell locally. Not worth the hassle and risky do to shipping and often the package is heavy adding to the risk.

@discnik 

If you post a close up shot of the damage I can tell you if there is anything you can do to make it more presentable.

LOL, I am such a fussbudget when it comes to my stereo gear....the damage is not so bad as to be visible from the front, unless you're close. The main damage is to the bottom of the corner, and I've decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Thanks for the offer, mijostyn. I live in High Point, NC, and up until the outsourcing of actual manufacturing jobs, it was (still is, because of the semi-annual furniture market shows) known as the furniture capital of the world. Lots of talented woodworkers in the area.