When Will We Learn?

I will try to post photo once I figure out the procedure to do that. The pic I took makes the damage look worse than it actually appears (but any damage is not good).

I usually only buy through Audiogon, TMR, USAM and have had very good results, with only a couple of disappointments on shipping issues. I am transitioning from a full suite of Dali Helicons in my main A/V system to Aperion Audio speakers. I found a pair of the excellent 6Ts just an hours' drive from home on Audiogon and will pick them up this weekend (they had been listed for several months and had gone unsold because seller was not willing to ship, evidently). The 6C center  came up on ebay, and it looked like the seller knew his stuff.....the speaker was priced very reasonably and was in pristine condition, with a shipping charge of $83. This was a FL to NC deal (700 miles), and that seemed fair due to the size/weight of the speaker. I couldn't afford to pass it up, because this model is seldom seen for sale, especially in this condition at the listed price ($175). A one-inch layer of solid Styrofoam underneath the speaker would have prevented the damage from happening, and the seller used pieces of that elsewhere in the box, but almost as as afterthought, not strategically placed. He (somewhat) over-protected the top of the speaker and under-protected the bottom.....I should have hired carlsbad2 to warn him that most damage comes from below, not from above. That damage being the result of being dropped from too great a distance, in most cases.

LOL, I am such a fussbudget when it comes to my stereo gear....the damage is not so bad as to be visible from the front, unless you're close. The main damage is to the bottom of the corner, and I've decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Thanks for the offer, mijostyn. I live in High Point, NC, and up until the outsourcing of actual manufacturing jobs, it was (still is, because of the semi-annual furniture market shows) known as the furniture capital of the world. Lots of talented woodworkers in the area.

I will ask the seller to consider some small adjustment, because the value of the speaker has dropped by at least half due to the damage (if I were to try to resell it). BTW, the cabinet is made of thick MDF and covered in a matte cherry veneer, very classy in an understated way. And get this - I traveled 60 miles one way yesterday to pick up the 6Ts (which were purchased on Audiogon from someone with zero feedback). I had been looking at them since I first saw the listing back in April or May, and one of the first questions I asked via the Audiogon conversation feature was "Do you have the center that goes with them?" I got either a negative response or no response (been so long, I can't remember, but none appeared on the convo record). Yesterday, he said he had just seen my query for the first time, and asked if I still needed the center. No wonder he has zero feedback, despite being an Agon member for several years. His communication during the sale was almost absent completely, to the point that I did not get a response to my email the day before our scheduled meeting to confirm that meeting. The real shock came when I sent a text a few minutes before leaving my house, and I didn't get a response until I was almost to the rendezvous point. In other words, I had no way of knowing for sure that he intended to show up and had to blindly trust that he would. Extremely weird to say the least.