The problem with crating is they assume a forklift will be used and that everything will be kept upright. Cardboard boxes actually work better because they require padding all the way around. That is for example what Tekton does. They are marked UPRIGHT but because of the way they are packaged it hardly matters.
Anyway with crates they can do things like bolt the speaker to the crate using the speakers threads. These are intended for floor spikes, not for holding the whole speaker up in the air upside down or sideways. Subjected to these kinds of loads they can pull out, leaving the speaker to bang around inside the crate. So look first for damage to these thread inserts.
If these are really strong and don’t pull out then the next thing that can go is the cabinet. This wasn’t designed for side loads either. So inspect carefully along every cabinet joint, corner, and edge. Of course it kind of goes without saying the driver cones, but you would spot that immediately. About the only thing there is soft dome tweeters can dent in and pop back out and it looks horrible but does no lasting damage and after a while even the crease disappears.
Almost always the crossover is build on a piece of MDF. Caps, inductors and resistors are simply zip-tied or hot-glued to the board. The board in turn is hot glued to a cross brace or something inside the cabinet. From the crossover wires go to each driver. There’s foam or batting in there. Bottom line, nothing in there to be damaged. The one thing that could happen is the board breaks off. Stand the speaker up, and tilt it to one side and then the other. Anything loose inside will shift around and you will hear it.
As far as the drivers being shock damaged, could happen I guess. What happens is the voice coil gap is very very small. The voice coil fits in a gap formed between the outer magnet and the inner pole piece. It takes a lot of force to do this but it is possible to shift the pole piece enough to freeze the voice coil and destroy the driver. (Ask me how I know!) The test for this one is simple- tap on the cone. If it moves freely you are good to go. Won't work for tweeters but if the woofers and mids are good they are far more massive and subject to damage so if they are good the tweeters should be as well.
This is all from actual experience. My Talon Khorus were crated. They had to send THREE to get ONE here in good shape. All the damage explained above happened to the others. Now I know why Eric uses cardboard and styrofoam.
