LOL, sorry guys, 'lame' was a poor choice of words... It's not like the receiver has a bum leg or anything. I guess my joking around wasn't conveyed well-enough through my green smiley emoticon...
Anyhoo, once again I have to say performance has increased significantly via boosting the bass knob on the Yamaha and keeping the speakers at least 10 inches away from the wall.
Jim, thanks so much for chiming in. I did try your tests and I don't think the crossovers or woofers are damaged. At least, I can't hear it if they are. I disconnected the jumpers and ran only the lower terminals, and then toggled between left and right using the balance control on my Yamaha. Didn't really notice any difference between them, whatsoever in low end response. I have to assume it would be highly unlikely that both woofers would have suffered the exact same damage.
ArthurDent, as putz reiterated, the speakers suffered damage in a custom-ordered, non-OEM box. Unfortunately the seller did not still have his original boxes, so he ordered a box from an online box site and packed the SongTowers using copious amounts of styrofoam, foam wrap, stacked cardboard, and bubble wrap. It will be interesting to see what FedEx decides with respect to the claim. But I digress... Thanks for the feedback regarding your experiences with your 590. Honestly, now that I've sat for a while in front of the 'tweaked' setup, the sound of the 690 is not bad at all. In fact, I'm only having to run the volume at about 10 o'clock to get things pretty loud in the room. I'm predicting that a more powerful and current integrated amp like an AVA or Brio-R or A-S2000 will make the SongTowers sound even more musical. Of course, I'm just going from what I've read in the forums, as I haven't heard any of those in person.
I'm praying that this whole claims deal has a happy ending, as I'd really like to be able to get an undamaged set of SongTowers to replace these!