Shipping on a palette is generally the safest, although if an errant forklift operator is having a bad day, watch out.
At work, we've had FedEx Air Freight put fork lift blades through two separate paletted/crated shipments with $50,000 worth of art inside. New York FedEx warehouse guys were having a bad day I guess. FedEx's Memphis hub also just lost an Air Freight overnight delivery with almost $200,000 worth of unsigned etchings in the package. Now we're going to have to print them again
We ship hundreds of packages a year with FedEx and 99% make it to their destination fine, but that 1% has been painful and expensive. They won't insure art shipments for more than $500, so we basically self insure anytime we use them.
I had good luck shipping Maggies FedEx ground. However, the factory packaging needs major reinforcing. I cut 1.5" thick foam reinforcement pads for all sides of the factory Magnepan package and then wrapped everything in plywood panels. I used two layers of gummed fiberglass reinforced paper tape over all seams and then bound everything together with heavy duty plastic strapping and clamps. Bottom line is that we're at the mercy of the shippers. They have guidelines suggesting all packaging should be sufficient to protect against a four foot high drop onto concrete. Good luck with that for almost all audio equipment and speakers.
