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.
When Will We Learn?
I retired in 2020 and have been selling much of my higher-end equipment while it still has considerable value. A few of those pieces were replaced by more mid-fi pieces, but ones that usually punch way above their weight. That lessened the pain of losing the higher SQ of the more expensive gear. This past week, I bought a very nice Aperion 6C center speaker that was in pristine condition before it shipped. It arrived today, with all kinds of protection on top of the speaker and almost none underneath. The speaker weighs 40 pounds, and one of the front corners got smashed. What was so galling was that I communicated my concern to the seller before making the purchase, because how you pack an item has a lot more to do with protecting it than how much padding you add. This seller obviously was not familiar with that concept (it was not an Audiogon purchase, BTW). The damage did not affect the sound of the speaker, but since it was a front corner, it will be a constant reminder of the unnecessary incident. The kicker was that I agreed to pay an $83.00 shipping charge to avoid this from happening, but there is no way to insure against stupidity.