Hey Max,
I didn't see this thread until just now, so I don't know what's been edited out and what hasn't. I logged into Rig-Talk tonight strictly to see if your amp had arrived yet. The pics you sent in the PM were utterly shocking, my heart sank when I saw them. And as a fellow amp-whore it made me furious inside. That was an amplifier that I had many good memories of. I'd gigged with it extensively and I knew you would appreciate it now that my gigging days are mostly over.
I've shipped 3-4 amp heads before (
Laney GH50L to someone on this board actually). I've never had to wrap tubes separately. Ever. Had no problems with shipping this way. For anyone unfamiliar with this particular amp - that tube covering on the top of the chassis? It's made of fucking metal. It's HEAVY. It's screwed directly to the chassis and almost indestructible. The way the amp was packed - I used the same 2" thick commercial packing foam that we use to ship our shock-sensitive fiber optic equipment in. I'd completely surrounded the amp with it. It was sealed off with duct tape all around the box lid. There's no way in hell the amp should be in this sort of condition after it was packed as such. I've shipped out quite a LARGE amount of computer and networking equipment over the past year (hundreds of servers, net load balancers, fiber optic switching equipment, etc...). All of it being infinitely more fragile than this metal-encased point-to-point wired amplifier.
What I find EXCEPTIONALLY curious, are those plastic bands that are surrounding the box. I did not use those when I packed the box to ship out. The box was in good shape when it left USPS. I'm thinking somewhere along the way, that thing fell off a truck, or had a refridgerator fall on it or... SOMETHING. The white plastic bands were most likely affixed after the package was damaged by the shipping company in order to keep the cardboard together in a quasi-cube shape.
This is COMPLETE bullshit. Unfortunately Max, I don't think a "Fragile" sticker would have prevented this in any way. I can completely understand you looking for someone to blame and trust me, I would be every bit as angry about this as you are if I was in your position. So I completely forgive any sort of ill-will you may or may not have conveyed in the original post.
I'm ABSOLUTELY going to cover the cost of new tubes for that amp. Doug's Tubes has a decent selection of 6SL7s FWIW, and I've dealt with him in the past for these. The Ruby EL34s that were in there previously most likely would need to be replaced soon anyway. Call Trace and ask him how much a matched set would cost, get Trace/Doug/Whoever to send me a copy of the invoice, and I'll send you the cost of these tubes via PayPal. I'm not doing this because you posted this on the forum instead of PM. I'm doing this because I realized after I'd already sent you the return PM a few minutes ago that your damage claim options might be limited, and I want to show some good will since you've had to deal with this shit.
It appears that the circuits are still intact. The transformer looks like it was shaken loose from its mount. I'm thinking that replacing the tubes and resetting the transformer will put the amp back in a playable state. Like I said in my PM, I'll be in close contact with you, so please use my work email address that I sent you in the PM as I can answer that faster than anything PM'd or posted here on rig-talk.
We'll follow up this thread when we've reached a mutually respectful resolution.
