[Ericus Rex]

Now wait a min. Seriously you think it resides on seller? I hope I never sell to you that thinks that. I have over 1600 sales on ebay and audiogon. I have surpassed 100,000.00 in sales through paypal, and guess what. Paypal  and ebay are on my side as a preferred seller and buyer. Sellers cannot be resposible at all for shipping unless they deliver it, thats what insurance is for, sad to say shippers do not honor their responsibility. To be honest I should be able to put an item in box period and should arrive safe like in the 1990's. Management at shipping companies has been dismall , managers lacjk of pride and only watching numbers has led to this trend. Nonetheless I tripple box most items, but buyers should pay for that IMO. Sorry to rant but bnuyers are rediculous. I buy all the time off ebay, I dont tell my sellers how to pack, Ill I state is make sure its insured, and if it dont make it be ready.
You guys need to rethink who is ultimately responsible. The other thing that cracks me up is those that complain sellers will not ship, goi figure, here you see a perfect example. You know what yuou really want drive and get it, otherwise you should be more understanding. Just my 2 cents.

Removal of tubes prior to shipping is standard procedure.  All manufacturers I know of do this.  All sellers should too.  The seller should be responsible in this case.

[FullRangeMan]

Seems seller neglicenge to me.
He did not want to spend time doing another package with the tubes.
Deserve a very negative feedback.

[Don_S]

Every new piece of tube equipment I have unpacked came with the tubes packaged separately but enclosed within the same shipping carton. Even small tubes like 12AX7s were removed and wrapped or boxed separately-no exceptions.

Now wait a min. Seriously you think it resides on seller? I hope I never sell to you that thinks that. I have over 1600 sales on ebay and audiogon. I have surpassed 100,000.00 in sales through paypal, and guess what. Paypal  and ebay are on my side as a preferred seller and buyer. Sellers cannot be resposible at all for shipping unless they deliver it, thats what insurance is for, sad to say shippers do not honor their responsibility. To be honest I should be able to put an item in box period and should arrive safe like in the 1990's. Management at shipping companies has been dismall , managers lacjk of pride and only watching numbers has led to this trend. Nonetheless I tripple box most items, but buyers should pay for that IMO. Sorry to rant but bnuyers are rediculous. I buy all the time off ebay, I dont tell my sellers how to pack, Ill I state is make sure its insured, and if it dont make it be ready.
You guys need to rethink who is ultimately responsible. The other thing that cracks me up is those that complain sellers will not ship, goi figure, here you see a perfect example. You know what yuou really want drive and get it, otherwise you should be more understanding. Just my 2 cents.

[underdawg]

Dont get me wrong I do remove tubes and individually wrap. However I can assure some manufacturers and even when they repair items send them with tubes inserted which will a little bubble wrap inside cage , the tubes do stay put. The reson is some owners dont wont tubes marked and to make sure tubes get put back where they were biased requires them to be in during shipping, but a little bubble wrap and tape those tubes would have survived in the cage.

[underdawg]

On a third note I have bought a case of tubes invidually bubble wrapped and boxed, seperated by by card board, and still arrive shattered, so nothing is guarenteed.

[FullRangeMan]

I had bought tubes in Russia and never near this happend.
Seems the miscare in north america carrier companies are devastating.

[Don_S]

Agreed there are two possible ways to ship with some degree of safety.  Remove the tubes or wrap them in place and find some way to keep them in place. But the seller did neither so why did you argue the fault was not with the seller?

I have received tube equipment where the tubes were removed but the tube boxes were clearly marked with the proper location for the tube e.t. L1, L2, etc. And the instruction sheet brought attention to the need to pay attention to the proper locations.

Dont get me wrong I do remove tubes and individually wrap. However I can assure some manufacturers and even when they repair items send them with tubes inserted which will a little bubble wrap inside cage , the tubes do stay put. The reson is some owners dont wont tubes marked and to make sure tubes get put back where they were biased requires them to be in during shipping, but a little bubble wrap and tape those tubes would have survived in the cage.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Now wait a min. Seriously you think it resides on seller?

In this case....Yes, abso-freekin-lutely, without a doubt, 100%, unequivocally.

[rooze]

I believe Supratek still ship their amps with the tubes in the sockets. Presumable they're held safely in place with some type of packaging material.

So I don't think that's the issue. And of course it's the sellers responsibility to ensure an item is adequately packed, if he/she doesn't, then the insurance is voided anyway, so whose responsibility is it then?

This was obviously careless packaging.

On a side note, I had some joker ship me a 60" planar magnetic ribbon assembly a few weeks ago, from a sale on eBay. He wrapped it in a piece of carpet underlay and some loft insulation, then taped some sections of cardboard around it to try to fabricate a box. Needless to say it arrived wrecked.

[JakeJ]

I need just a bit more clarification.

It would appear from your description and pictures that the amp was wrapped in a heavy plastic bag or wrap, then put in the OEM shipping foam, then put in the original(?) box and shipped with the tubes in the sockets.  Aside from the tubes not being pulled and packed separately it appears the seller shipped in the original packing and that should be good enough since it was for the mfr.

Gents, please go back and look at the first set of pics and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.  I see that the output taps are bent and the left channel posts look like they are almost ripped out of the chassis!  This tells me it suffered severe damage from poor handling by the shipper.  Unfortunately even with the obvious evidence FedEx will deny the claim.  If they do honor it kiss the amp good-bye.  I have never been offered the option of having an item repaired or salvaged or anything.  I would add that I also have had equipment sent to me with the tubes still in their sockets and had both success and disaster.  However,  I have never shipped anything without pulling and packing the tubes separately, just common sense to me.

Best of luck sorting this out.

[geowak]

I feel empathy for the OP. I guess I have to say in this case the seller takes the full responsibility. It looks as if he/she did not give a sh** and how difficult is it to take out the tubes to wrap them in bubble wrap?
I would be very, very pissed. I would demand my money refunded, canceled the transaction straight away after I witnessed that obvious lack of concern to properly and carefully package a delicate tube amp. I would be furious, since fedex probably will not honor a claim.

How would the buyer know if the amp ever worked even before it shipped?
Demand your money back, if you have not gotten it already. This smells like
donkey manure!

[JerryM]

In this case....Yes, abso-freekin-lutely, without a doubt, 100%, unequivocally.

Agreed.

Man, I'd be so bummed. I'd be forced to ask for a full refund, and competently ship the unit back to the seller with a written reference to the photos posted herein.

Hoping you have a positive outcome,

Jerry

[Don_S]

Send him a link to this thread.  He will either feel so bad he will immediately offer a full refund or change his name and go into witless protection. 

Agreed.

Man, I'd be so bummed. I'd be forced to ask for a full refund, and competently ship the unit back to the seller with a written reference to the photos posted herein.

Hoping you have a positive outcome,

Jerry

[kingdeezie]

Removal of tubes prior to shipping is standard procedure.  All manufacturers I know of do this. 

Completely untrue.

Manley, and presumably VTL, do in fact ship product with tubes installed. My Neo Classic 250s ship with tubes installed. There is however a specific packaging peice that goes around the tubes to protect them.

It looks as if this peice is missing from the pictures, but the seller might have remembered receiving the amps this way safely, and just neglected to remember to apply all the correct packaging materials initially included.

[pehare]

I feel for you having been there myself.  I've experienced 3 incidents shipping tube amplifiers via ground shipping.  Twice shipping to/receiving amps from Cary in NC & once receiving a used amp from CA to my home in FL.  In all cases it was up to the party who shipped the item to deal w/the claim thru fedex or ups.  All claims were settled satisfactorily - all were adequately insured & properly packaged in factory packaging.  I did have to provide receipts to prove value.  Twice they tried to shut me out but I persisted like a m-f'r w/the claims adjusters & they knew I wasn't going to go away.

My last amp I bought new (w/the tubes in it btw) I had shipped to me fedex 2nd day air & it arrived unscathed from CA to FL the next day for $100.  I'll never ship another amp anything but 'air' ever again.   

[thunderbrick]

I had a repaired tube amp shipped to me with input tubes installed, not wrapped separately.  Except the firm who now uses the manufacturer's name (and actually DESIGNED the amp) did a shitty job of packing it for return.  What was a pristine amp looked like some Greatful Dead roadies had their way with it.   

But the tubes were fine.

[Ericus Rex]

Gents, please go back and look at the first set of pics and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.  I see that the output taps are bent and the left channel posts look like they are almost ripped out of the chassis!  This tells me it suffered severe damage from poor handling by the shipper.  Unfortunately even with the obvious evidence FedEx will deny the claim. 

I see no such damage.  The output taps are angled up on this amp.  There's no doubt the amp suffered a blow somehow but I don't see any chassis damage in the pics.

While foam inserts may prevent the tubes from coming out of their sockets during shipping you still run the risk of breaking off the delicate plastic pins of octal power tubes.  Complete removal of all tubes and boxing seperately is the best thing to do.

I always instruct sellers how I want the item packed.  They probably call me dirty names but things almost always arrive safely.

[JakeJ]

OK, E.R., I stand corrected.  I see the angled back plate now that I look again.  Still, the amp had to have suffered a pretty good impact.  As far as ground shipping I have had great luck with FedEx and bad with UPS.  I haven't shipped anything in a while so maybe they aren't doing so good lately.  I think it might be a good idea to upgrade to 2nd Day Air since it simply reduces the time the shipper has possession of the item.

[Freo-1]

Would heartily agree with air shipping.  Never have had any issues with that method.

[bummrush]

I went through a Mac tuner with I swear to god 100 yr old rock hard foam. Front end glass all busted up.Fed ex came over looked at and ruled instantly in my favor , they aren't all bad.