They all break stuff. Sometimes even worse. I had shipped several Cardas headphone / interconnect cables (Bandon, Oregon) in for retermination services just before Christmas 2020. They were “lifted” internally in Portland. I received the insurance payment after fighting with UPS for more than a month. If it’s something high dollar and fragile, USPS registered insured is the safest bet. It’s a little slower, but USPS employees have to sign the parcel transfer during the shipping process.
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This is not your Dad’s FedEx:
I dislike to appear to be piling on, but another twist in my situation is that I separately ordered a P3 moments after placing the order for the M700s. PSA processed and shipped it out quickly. Thank-you.
The tracking for that package indicated an expected delivery for today by COB as late at 4:00 PM today even though the tracking showed it sitting in PERRYSBURG, OH (~500 miles away) since 7:09 AM.
As of this writing, the tracking says “No scheduled delivery date available at this time.” Given how bad things are, there is no way to know where on earth it actually is.
PSA,
I have no idea what kind of contract you have with Fedex and it’s none of my business. However, from a customer satisfaction standpoint, they, by extension, represent you. Their ability to deliver your products in a timely and predictable manor is seriously lacking. This does not reflect well. At this point, I cannot say if this will influence my decision on potential future purchases one way or another. However, it will be a consideration. I guess it all depends on how much your products blow my hair back. 
I am very pleased with my Sprout 100 and is why I choose the M700s over the competition.
Free shipping is a nice thing, but I know it is baked into the pricing. I am not getting what I have paid for in that respect. Drop a few $s off the price and I’ll gladly pay for shipping that is better than this. Apologies for being so blunt.
I had to send my SGCD in for service and specifically chose UPS. I dropped it off on Tuesday from San Francisco and it arrived in Boulder on Thursday morning traveling UPS Ground. PSA sent it back via FedEx on the following Thursday and it was slated for a Sunday delivery which surprised me. What didn’t’ was come Sunday night it had just arrived in their Roseville center. To their credit they did get it to me on Monday which was the quickest I’ve received a FedEx package from PSA.
Algorithms? They use a dartboard that has FedEx hubs instead of numbers, except two segments that are marked “Delayed” and one marked “Lost”
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Sadly this is likely the case. A lot of new customers will ask after ordering which shipper we use. Most are quite happy and relieved when I say FedEx and they’ll reply, “oh great, FedEx is really reliable in my area.”
I find it interesting that FedEx can be more reliable in certain regions but I guess it makes sense.
When we have a situation where FedEx drops the ball multiple times for the same person, we have much better luck if we send the package to a pick-up location. I know it’s an added errand to go drive and get it, but in my opinion, very worth it if the drop off and safety of the package is reliable.
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As I noted, many posts earlier, we live in a part of the country with great service, locally and regionally for UPS and FedEx, and mostly from USPS. My recent MagnaRisers were shipped FedEx, signature required, and were due to come the one day this year that we were away from home. I rerouted the shipment to our local FedEx shop and picked them up that evening when we returned. Local FedEx even called me. No complaints, though I am sympathetic to all who have suffered. Nothing like waiting longer for your toys!
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In my experience, shipping and receiving, Fedex have been excellent. UPS also.
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I have had excellent experience with all carriers overall. But I do not discount those who have had dreadful and annoying problems.
In the Baltimore area, if signature is required, the driver signs for it. Maryland state law mandates that for delivery of alcoholic beverages, an adult residing at the delivery address must sign, and show proper ID. FedEx and UPS drivers simply forge and drop, without knocking. And, they do their best NOT to be heard. Often, they just leave it up at the main entrance to the apartment building, in plain sight of the entire neighborhood. Good thing I have honest neighbors.
I have honest drivers! During Covid, drivers would sign if needed, but in my presence. I know them all by name, and they me. A couple or 3 I know from our local wine bar and/or coffee shop. Small town living at its best!
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James
I prefer the pick-up location option given that Fedex NEVER requests a signature and dumps expensive equipment on my porch (unlike UPS) and planned to make the change on the order sent last Thursday.
BUT
The Fedex website with the change delivery option has repeatedly crashed and I can’t even request tracking updates since that crashes as well.
Same experience here from someone NE of Baltimore. UPS and FedEx will drop off packages both large and small without a whisper (or a signature) and then be on their merry way. UPS has trashed my incoming and outgoing packages (and USPS has bashed a few) so I don’t give them anything I don’t have to. In order to be an equal opportunity complainer, my last large package delivered by FedEx came half soaked with water but luckily it was double-boxed and taped shut so no water got inside.
I’m also amazed/amused by the circuitous routes packages can take, especially when you’re shipping to a state right next to you. Has to do with their hubs and what location handles what, I believe. I’ve shipped from MD to an address in PA where the package went to Florida first, had an overseas package go from MD to NJ (International eBay hub), eventually winding up in Germany and having it come back because, only until it arrived in Germany it was discovered that the address was invalid. It got back into the states and sat in Chicago for a couple of weeks in Customs, and was finally rerouted to the valid address in Texas.
I live in Forest Hill, and as you probably know, less than fifteen miles away in White Marsh is a big FedEx hub, just a little off I-95. How can so many packages from the North East go right past that hub, and go through Richmond, Nashville, Detroit or wherever when they literally come within one friggin mile of the hub? That is when the frustration and steam starts building up.
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Distribution, scheduling, and cost optimization is performed through linear programming optimization. Which based on human assumptions or factors determined on sketchy data and inequalities. Thus a broad range of possibilities as to a packages optimum routing one gets the best worst case answer.
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This has nothing to do with getting audio gear from any of these carriers, but does have to do with what goes on with shipments.
I was up at my (now sold to someone else) house a number of weeks ago to pack the very last of my things into 2 U-Boxes. We discovered to our dismay that I miscalculated the total size needed, leaving us with about a dozen (thankfully relatively small) boxes that we had to get to my new home - and oh, we had about 2 hours before leaving for the airport. So I had no choice but to ask my neighbor to drive me and the boxes to my local UPS Store (less than a mile away). I had them all shipped via UPS Ground, figuring it will only take two days to get to the new house.
Now, these were all U-Haul boxes, which it turned out are great for loading on to a U-Haul truck, but not so great for handing off to a shipper. The boxes arrived in two days alright, looking like they had gone through a battlefield. The driver said he even had to mark in his record that three of the boxes were delivered damaged (the others almost all still looked like they too had been at the nasty end of a baseball bat!). I asked they guy how this happens. He explained that the conveyance systems used in UPS (and I imagine the other carriers) carry the boxes around, and they sometimes route through these facilities before getting summarily dropped into large transport bins. He said U-Haul quality boxes are really not suitable for the kind of pounding and dropping that occurs in the normal package sorting process. So for those (like me up till now) who would take in a breath when seeing a precious audio package dropped on the front porch, this apparently is nothing compared to what happens before it reaches its destination.
Fortunately for me the only thing damaged with all this was in one box, and is readily replaceable. The CDs I sent (almost half my collection was in three of those boxes! 
) seem to have made it unscathed.
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Since when is lousy spelled “linear”?? Huh???
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Linear= Lowest Cost < or = Lousy Circuitous Routing = More Damage Opportunities
Packaging to survive the brutality meted out by UPS (and FedEx) is about more than the outer box. It’s as much about how the item inside is padded and that is where my concern tends to lie from past experience. Cutting corners with internal padding to save a buck or two ticks me off. Corner pads alone typically aren’t enough. Those air filled pillow pads are non-starters.
I have a story to relate everyone can appreciate. I am one of the earliest US customers of Harbeth having purchased a pair of first generation Compact 7s. Those had to be imported from, if memory serves me correctly, Nova Scotia as the sole distributor for all of North America at that time. I was warned on the phone by the distributor that he would not guarantee they would arrive in one piece because in his words ‘Harbeth doesn’t take the rough handling of US carriers seriously’. I walked away from that experience with an understanding the less than stellar reputation of US shippers is well known abroad.
Recent experience with my new Salk Song3 Encores has me convinced that if it is bulky, high value and means enough to you to get it in one piece use LTL freight. I’m a believer and am willing to pay extra.