Recall of Krell Amplifiers

My KSA 250 also when it went caused sparks and smoke !
Luckly I was close to it when it happened and I quickly unplugged it from the wall.

Yup just keep'em on 24/7 for its best sparkling performance

This is a very old and well known problem with the Krell. The overheating and sparks have been captured in this image.

What took them 10 years to get to it?

LOL, Shadorne. I was a Krell dealer long ago and my KMA 100 went up spactularly for the second time just as a rep for another company walked through the door to hear them. You had to ship BOTH amps back when this happened. Their "customer relation" man ask me what I was doing when this happened; I told him nothing , I was just warming them up. He said" Oh, if you turn our amps on and don't play them you void the warranty". I ask him how long I had after turning them on, he eventually saw that this was ridiculous. I got them fixed , sold them and the others I had and have never had or wanted another. I concede that some of them are good amps but I have no desire to recapture the early days of transistors when switching on was an adventure.

Liar, liar pants on fire Shadorne...........that's from "Forbidden Planet" released in 1956.

ROTFL, Shadorne.

Not sure if everyone who reads this thread will realize that Dan D'Agostino named his company after the extinct super-race of Forbidden Planet, from which the photo linked to by Shadorne is taken.

-- Al

Thanks for the explanation Al. That makes Shadorne's post MUCH funnier. That level of subtlety would have all gone completely over my head otherwise.

And like Dr.Morbius, Mr.D'Agostino's enlightenment will be overcome by his ego as he doles out advanced technology only as he sees fit, ultimately unleashing his Id destroying those who question and oppose him, subconsciously through his amplifiers.....

And this all goes to show, as Winston Churchill once said, you can fool some of the Audiogoners all of the time, and all of the Audiogoners some of the time, but you can not fool all of the Audiogoners all of the time.

Al you are quite right that the Id Monster was unleashed by the massive mind amplifying power of the Krell machines (almost the whole planet was a massive mind amplifier) and the sparks were indeed flying as it came up against the Cruiser's force field.

And by the way, the ladies swoon for Robby the Robot - he is one classy fella.

No August is complete without the famous Krell barbecue.

Put on your favorite music, fire up the amp, and have the steaks near by.

You know, cook some dinosaur meat on your dinosaur grill.

Roll out those lazy crazy days of summer..........

Shad> I believe on ALTAIR V, it was Churchill who gave your quote.

Here on EARTH it was Lincoln.

Is there a Theramin soundtrack album from FP?

Magfan,

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin:

A theremin was not used for the soundtrack of Forbidden Planet, for which Louis and Bebe Barron built "disposable" oscillator circuits and a ring modulator to create the "electronic tonalities" for the film.[20][21]

From Reference 20 of that article:

The musical score, termed "electronic tonalities," was composed by Louis and Bebe Barron. They were a married couple, collaborators of avant-garde composer John Cage. The "bleats, burps, whirs, whines, throbs, hums and screeches" that make up the sound track contained carefully developed themes and motifs, as well as providing general atmosphere. Unlike Bernard Herrmann's score for The Day the Earth Stood Still, which used the Theremin as well as an unconventional selection of standard musical instruments, Forbidden Planet's innovative score was entirely electronic.

And from Reference 21 of that article:

The groundbreaking Forbidden Planet soundtrack is credited as the first all-electronic music soundtrack for a major commercial movie and was unlike anything that audiences had heard before. In fact, during one preview of Forbidden Planet, the audience actually broke out in spontaneous applause as the sounds of the spaceship landing on Altair IV filled the theater!

Making electronic music was slow and laborious process back in the 1950s. By following the equations presented in the 1948 book, Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, by mathematician Norbert Wiener, Louis Barron built electronic circuits which he used to generate sounds. Most of the tonalities were generated with a circuit called a ring modulator. After recording the sounds, the couple further manipulated the material by adding effects such as reverb and delay and also by sometimes reversing and changing the speed of certain sounds.

Fascinating, as a leading character in a later and not completely dissimilar creation would have said!

Regards,
-- Al

Man, there is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much love for Krell - it's just ooooozing out from every member here!! ;-)

LOL, Audiofeil!!

Shazbut, Magfan, you're right. Orson would be proud of you. Nanu-Nanu!

From memory, so don't harsh me too bad!

Theramin invented by a Russian of that name (first not remembered) who later disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

No particular love for Krell, at least the Equipment. However, the Krell fictional race DO get my sympathy, based on what Morbiius said of them and how they perished.
Class 'a' gear doesnt' get my sympathy, either. I simply can't take the heat, not to mention the apparently occasional meltdown! Not being rich, I stretched myself to audition the then current 400xi integrated and while the Maggies seemed to like it, you could use it as a cook top.

Shakespeare would be proud. I'll let you guys figure that one out!
And it has nothing whatsoever to do with Star Drek or Orson.

I stand corrected! I have thought forever....(years, actually), that Forbidden Planet had a Theramin score.
Now, I guess I need to find out what the difference is between the circuitry of the Theramin and that described for Forbidden Planet.
At least they can't take my Disney animation away from me!

No particular love for Krell, at least the Equipment. However, the Krell fictional race DO get my sympathy, based on what Morbiius said of them and how they perished.

Yes, indeed:

Dr. Edward Morbius: In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty, noble race of beings who called themselves the Krell. Ethically and technologically they were a million years ahead of humankind, for in unlocking the meaning of nature they had conquered even their baser selves, and when in the course of eons they had abolished sickness and insanity, crime and all injustice, they turned, still in high benevolence, upwards towards space. Then, having reached the heights, this all-but-divine race disappeared in a single night, and nothing was preserved above ground .... My poor Krell. After a million years of shining sanity, they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.

I give up on the reference to Will!

Best,
-- Al :)

I think it was Altair IV. Forbidden Planet was based on Shakespeare's last play. The Theramin was supposedly played by putting your hands into the path some part of it and moving them to create different effects, or that was the story I read years ago. Only one woman ever became really good on it and they failed to record much if any of her playing, again according to the same article.

Disney gets a good deal of the credit for the movie, he loaned his special effects genus whose name was Ub Iwerks or something like that, to the production. They were beaten out for the special effects Oscar by the 10 Commandments, which won everything that year. They was robbed. I posted this but they didn't put it up, the secret word is "Tempest".

Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', about 1610.

Yes, Theramin is a non-contact instrument invented in about 1928 by Leon Theramin, a Russian. 2 hands control amplitude and frequency. BUT, as I was corrected in a previous post, the Theremin was NOT used in Forbidden Planet!
I think he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Word on the street is he went back to his home planet.

You can buy modern SS versions, as kits, boards, or just schematics. However, even though I am a SS guy, I would prefer the Tube version....for nostalgia if no other reason. It'd look cool in the living room, too. Scare the &^%$ out of the cats!

I have always been told that Disney did the Mattes....Paintings on glass, used to provide the cool backgrounds in many scenes. A lost art courtesy of computer enhanced graphics.