Set up heavy speakers alone?

Good. The prospect of new speakers, particularly at the high end you are exploring, should be an exercise in pleasure, not an exercise in pain. I hope it goes well.

Look here Oldneil,  I have a well dodgy back with a couple of lower lumbar discs far from their best.  I recently got a pair of 802D3's which weigh approx 90kg out of box and 115kg including packaging.  Perhaps that made my decision to not even try to move them easy.  Backs can be absolute pigs - you can feel fine and a day or two later you lift a feather and spend the next week in great discomfort.  I managed to get friends to help however, my back up plan was to spend not much and try to employ 'men with a van' to carry the packaged speakers to the listening room and get them into roughly the correct place.  The 802's have both castors and spikes built into their base plinths which makes moving them much easier but the hard work is the unpacking and lifting from horizontal to vertical.

My advice - get help and wait however long it takes for the help to arrive.  If you have to pay a little for this help, no big shakes.  Do not risk moving them unassisted.

Peter

That must be one heck of a dealer - ship them that far, man handle them, box them up and have a pair of Sopras to do the same thing to....I'm surprised he's still in business. The freight charges alone and I thought life was complicated enough having my Sopras shipped and installed. 

The Kudos are shipped directly to me from UK.  Focal is a different dealer. But because I live so far away it is impossible for them to come home to my place. 

I did it myself!

And everything went fine. No problem with my back.  But, most important, these speakers sound so good after just 10hours playing. They are really smooth and wonderful! Yes, I know they need at least 100hours, but already straight from the box they sound absolutely wonderful.  I really can hear things in the mix I've never heard before.  

Hmmm, I think I'll skip those Sopras.

Well done.

Glad to hear you got them installed safely and are enjoying them. Congratulations. 

Thank you. And I forgot to tell you they look wonderful in tineo!

Congratulations, it's always good to hear about a happy ending....