setton rs-440 & jbl L88P

[blclement]

Hey everyone. I've been lurking around here for a little while, and have recently joined. Recently I found a pair of JBL L88P speakers in pretty good condition across the street from my apartment amongst a pile of rubbish my neighbor was getting rid of. I grabbed them and used cleaned them up and needed a good receiver to power them.

Initially I found a Technics SA 290 for $15 on Craigslist, which I bought. To my disappointment, it was a piece of junk. I ended up taking my dad's old Setton RS-440, which is both a beautiful looking and beautiful sounding receiver.

Unfortunately the receiver switches in and out of "protection" mode frequently, which is a problem. But anyway, I wanted to introduce myself and say hello to the AK community.

 

[Alex6969]

wow, nice score!
Welcome to AK

I have a Technics SA - 290 as well. A pretty decent receiver, but nothing compared to my Marantz 2220B!

 

[blclement]

The Marantz 2220B looks like a gorgeous unit. Got my 290 working alright, it'll have to do until I can fix the Setton.

 

[rickr15]

Welcome to AK
Nice looking Setton. AK member The Black Knight has some kind of a Setton owners group and collects all the serial numbers etc. You might PM him and he can probably fill you in on a lot of the history behind your receiver and its makers.

 

[blclement]

Thanks for the tip. I actually did PM him asking him a question about fixing the problem I have with it. I look forward to talking to him and learning more about it.

 

[theblackknight]

Brian, you have a PM !

good luck with fixin it, it's well worth it.

Soon my RS-440 will be a daily driver on the Altec Valencia, its a great receiver. I've driven it very hard in the past and it has NEVER given me a single problem.

 

[mech986]

Nice score! Amazing that someone would throw those JBL's away!! Some people like the L88 better than the L100 because it not quite so in your face with that west coast sound.

How are the cabinets? Will you have to do some refurbishing - also, what happened to the grilles?

Regarding the Setton, your father is a lucky guy to have purchased the RS440, its got a nice punch.

Check with maybe SoCal Sam, he might have a lead from ex-member Vintagestereo about a service manual. My bets are there is excess DC offset triggering the protection. There is a DC offset thread that is reaaalllly long but something to check into once you're ready to tackle the repair or troubleshooting.

Regards,

Bart

 

[blclement]

Awesome, thanks a lot. It looks like I came to the right place.

The cabinets are actually in pretty good shape. The front outer edge could use a little touch up, but nothing a little TLC won't fix. The grilles are another story, however.

Neither of the grilles have the felt (or whatever was on them) covers that they came with. They are both just wire screen right now. One of them is largely in tact, while the other has a massive hole in it. However both still have their JBL badges, so that's good.

I'll look into that DC offset triggering thread. Here's a couple pics of the Setton I also posted in the introduction thread. I'll take some pics of the JBLs and hopefully get them up tonight.

 

[SoCal Sam]

Regarding the Setton, your father is a lucky guy to have purchased the RS440, its got a nice punch.

Very true!

Check with maybe SoCal Sam, he might have a lead from ex-member Vintagestereo about a service manual. My bets are there is excess DC offset triggering the protection. There is a DC offset thread that is reaaalllly long but something to check into once you're ready to tackle the repair or troubleshooting.

Regards,

Bart

VS has some RS-660 documents, not sure about the RS-440. Hope you can get your RS-440 working fine.

 

[blclement]

Yeah, I'm going to poke around inside after reading some of the posts on here about deoxiting, and see what happens. Barring that, I think I'll have to send it to that stereo surgeon in Connecticut.

 

[mhardy6647]

There was a claim here at AK that the Setton receivers and the Lafayettes (at least the LR-9090) were made by the same OEM.

 

[RamblinE]

I just picked up a Lafayette LR-5555A from a friend's father and I'd have to second Hackwhite's exclamation that the Setton's interior looks identical to the Lafayette. The layout of the controls look extremely similar, same with the feature set.

Playing the local jazz station with it over my full range drivers it sounds very good. Clear, punchy and musical though I'd hesitate to say that I kind of like it. Only just picked it up today.