Cheapest way to ship large speakers?


I have some towers that I want to ship (about 6 ft. x 2 ft.x 2 ft. boxes). Anyone have a good source? UPS and FedEx want $1000!!!
jschatz
I recently used YRC to ship a 250 pound skid containing speakers from Montana to Illinois. Yellow and Roadway Freight merged to form YRC. The cost was only $350 (I saved $150 by going to the local Illinois warehouse to pick them up). YRC made everything easy easy easy.
I just shipped a pair of Totem Sttaf from Boston to Geneva, Switzerland with my sister in law as excess baggage on Swiss Air. They were 2 boxes, 30 lbs. each. They charged them as extra suitcases, at $25 each. They should have charged more as oversized, but they just charged as bags. Even if they had charged their regular rate for oversize luggage ($200 per box), it would have been cheaper than other shipping options. The boxes had Swiss Air Fragile - Glass stickers on them, so I think they were treated pretty well, unlike Fed Ex who dropped them hard enough to break the magnet off one of the tweeters and break a solder connection in one of the crossovers - in just getting them from Philadelphia to Boston. This is probably not an option here, particularly because of the size, but it is something to keep in mind. It worked well in my case.
I used a company called R&L to ship my Dyn C4s 2000 miles with no issues.Used they a couple of times and they are great! Quite affordable as well.As far as UPS/ FED EX goes I would avoid them at all cost.I bought a sub about a year ago and it was shipped through Fed Ex.I happened to be looking out my window waiting for delivery when I saw the driver pull up,open his side door and push the box out onto the sidewalk with his foot.
I shipped soundlab m2's from Seattle to southern NJ
on united van lines;no problems encountered at all.
With Fedex and UPS, you run into "dimensional weight", which may be 3 cubic feet or some maximum height (40"?) and can easily double the costs. Found that DHL is easier and cheaper on bigger packages. Although, not sure how cooperative it is on the receiving end for home delivery. Couldn't be any worse than Fedex.
I'd also say freightquote.com. I've used them without issues and you can choose the least expensive of the quotes.
I would not ship them unless they were packed in their original box with the original packing material. Any other way you'll be asking for trouble.
Freight. Pack the speakers individually. Get a correctly sized pallet and strap them down laying side by side with extra layers of protection to reduce the chance of a fork lift damaging them. I had some speakers shipped to me that were about as you describe from Chicago to Calif. for 3 or 4 hundred.
Can you ship these as freight to a commercial address? That will be cheaper and probably safer too.
You might try freightquote.com.

If possible, you want the same company handling the shipment all the way to the buyer's door. If there are two companies involved, each will blame the other if there's any damage.
I'd be asking for the safest way to ship speakers, but hey, that's just me !!!!