Since we are talking about shipping damage, I ordered a JBL S/2600 air freight from Japan. These are big floor standing speakers with the same horn as the DD55000 Everest but a 2-way design. 125 lbs each.
It went FedEx Freight and keeled over during transport. The driver was shocked and it had been strapped to the sides of the truck but somehow the strap got loose.
Damage? None.
Another story. I bought a Linn LP12 from an estate sale. Someone passed away and had instructions for their heirs to list the products on Audiogon. So, you have a LP12 with no dust cover and a rare Monster Cable Sigma 2000 moving coil cartridge with no protection for the stylus… being shipped by someone who has very little knowledge of audio….
I walked them through the strategy for packaging it and it arrived safely.
Last story, I bought a vintage JBL S2S subwoofer in original packaging. The FedEx driver was rolling it like a snowman-making snow ball.
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So what are the secrets?
I have been happy with USPS, UPS, and FedEx and have had my horror stories from all three. There can be a lot of variability with the person assigned to your locale, but the thing to remember is that there are HUGE amounts of boxes going through the system and that translates into a lot of automated sorting.
1) Read through this. This talk about tape styles (H-pattern, Tic-Tac-Toe) etc.
While they do not guarantee “this side up”, by placing your label on the top surface, it increases the likelihood that it works that way. You can imagine the automated cameras looking down on a conveyor belt.
2) Your item cannot shake or wobble inside of the box. Double boxes or adding extra room for padding is dangerous if it just allows your item to jostle around.
3) When shipping heavy objects like amplifiers, you need specific protections for the corners. If you are shipping tube amps with heavy transformers, for example, bubble wrap may pop under the weight of the unit itself. It those cases you need dense foam.
Owens Corning Foamular NGX 1” R-5 Project Panel XPS Rigid Foam Board Insulation is amazing for being relatively light (so as not to eat up shipping costs) but being durable. It is better to build a cocoon with this and single box than do any time of nested boxes.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Buildin...ard-Insulation/Owens-Corning/N-5yc1vZbaxxZ3q5
4) For tier 1 global companies (Yamaha, Denon, Marantz, McIntosh, JBL, Magnepan, Meyer Sound), you can often purchase factory packaging at very affordable prices by going through customer service. These global companies that ship heavy products globally have figured out exactly the right amount of padding needed to safely ship products around then world. The JBL Synthesis gear and Meyer Sound gear I have shipped always seem to mix a single sturdy box with dense, product specific foam end caps that hold everything together.
5) Knobs, levers, switches and stuff like that are prone to getting bent or broken. Use blocks of foam or protective shells of some sort to prevent them from being damaged. You can use painters tape to secure things as they will not leave a residue on products within normal shipping times. Be careful around labels/decals when using tape.
6) If you have something truly unobtainium, factor in 2 day shipping.
Takahashi telescopes are some of the most premium telescopes you can buy, before going even more exotic (Astro Physics, TEC, Questar). They mix old school manufacturing like sandcasting with precise optical manufacturing.
They insist that you need to use 2 day air for shipping any refractor in order to minimize shipping damage where even the slightest bit of misalignment of the telescope optics can mar quality.
You can use closed captions with auto translate to see how they make their telescopes.