Hey Mike

Here's the story...I was in Bosnia on a peacekeeping mission. I learned about the Empeg while I was there and ordered one. I had severe problems getting it to clear Croatian customs so my package was shipped back to Empeg. Soon afterwards I went home to Canada to visit my parents on leave. They live in Nova Scotia. I asked the Empeg people to redirect the player there, which they did, free of charge.

I received my player finally in Nova Scotia but still had to have it shipped to Windsor, Ontario (where I was to take leave after my tour). The Empeg box I received was extremely badly damaged going from England to Croatia and back again...so when I finally received my player in Nova Scotia (it was lost by both TNT and Purolator), the box was pretty well a write off (crushed on all sides and the inside supports for the player gone). I repackaged the damaged Empeg box in a bigger box with foam peanuts and made arrangements to have it shipped to Windsor to coincide with my arrival back there on leave.

Because of the way I placed the player in the package (VFD face up), it was subseptable to crush damage from the top and that's exactly what happened. I received my player in Windsor and the nipple was broken off due to crush pressure on the VFD. I f*cking hate how courriers mishandle the packages they're entrusted to. I realize now that I should have claimed the damage from the courrier but I was too niave to pursue it. The cost of the repair to replace the VFD plus the shipping to England and back totalled about $300 CDN. My bad eh?

One thing that was really nice tho..when I got my player back from the repair, the box it came in was brand new...the Empeg guys replaced my original box. It was really nice to see the box as it should have been received when I first made my order......