ICE T16

For many years now, Talk Audio’s main men (and stalwart women) have run a series of events called ICE T. Some regional and organised on an ad hoc basis by forum members, like the Christmas bash in Eastbourne (which I recall becoming really rather beery, with myself liberally anointed into the brotherhood by baptism of hops. Or something.) and in particular an utterly unique car audio-only based event that has been beavering away in a field near hub of empire (just past the opening in the south downs to the posh Oxfordshire countryside, along Old Father Thames’ middle reaches) every July since 2000, with more events in the early years and one per year for the last four.

On occasions, it has been huge, with exhibitors and cars in all directions. This year we were labouring under a cloud of many months of crap weather and climate change being blamed for the utter destruction of any kind of British Summer Time.
As it transpired, the boss got a sunburned nose during the day. A few spits and spots of rain were all we got but my was it windy! At times it seemed likely that the odd flag was going to blow across the field. In fact one year the Blaupunkt inflatable exhibit did a literal Mary Poppins and took off. Sadly and unfunnily for the few, it was dragging an unplugged metal compressor behind it and smacked a few cars as it went. All we got, thankfully, was the odd SPL contest form blown all the way to the far field margin to go chase and clear up at the end.  It is a fine venue and used for steam rallies as well by the owner, so has plenty of strong ground for heavy wheels and was no problem, even for the likes of the  Vibe R8 that came along, to drive across and set up. We had lanes to drive the contest cars around as Darren Millard showed up to run a dB Drag event with trophies sponsored by Talk Audio, so it was a rare free-to-enter SPL festival.
We had James Howe from Kenwood pop down with the young geezer in his life, (his small son) who although less than five is definitely a car nut. Can’t imagine where he gets that from. As well as Vibe and Kenwood, we had Fusion in the house with the UK debut of their mad new Fiesta demo car. It had never been seen in the UK before although it had been videoed at the French show at Magny Cours (embedded in a news story as well) and was out for its first UK foray.
 
Considering the subwoofers are sixty quid each, it was bloody bonkers! Hugely in-yer-face-baseball-cap-on-sideways stuff and just ‘zackly what youngsters can start on today. Only a bit less, like one of each, perhaps. For in the Fiesta there were twelve Fusion RE-SW120 subs and each had its own Fusion RE-AM90010 amplifier. It’s at least twenty-four times better than the Harry Moss booster and Audioline ‘supersound’ door speakers that my budget stretched to back when I were a lad. (Not that I’m bitter that it wasn’t there for me, then. much) It also has three sets of RE-CM65 components installed in the front doors, so six drivers per side. Henry Harwood and Jerry Reeve are the cunning folks who crammed it all in with an ingenious box design.
 
Those Jedi masters of the high end in-car cause, known as Four, showed up with Lee Thomas in tow, whose awesome super-SQ Beetle has been worked on even more he now has £975 a metre Chord Indigo RCAs in there to match his Chord Signature £125 a metre subwoofer speaker cable and Chord Epic (only £40 a metre) speaker cables; some £7,000 worth of cables in all if you include his top end power system. And even posher drivers.
It’s well gorgeous boyo.
 
I have all sorts of plans to make broadcasty things with this man if I can pull it off before he pulls it all out.

A bit of feedback from anyone bothered to PM the author would be nice would a DVD entitled ‘Boomers & Tweaks Extreme ICE’ be something you would pick up to read the sleeve notes? There would be four cars; Mark Turner’s EMMA-winning Bimmer as well as Iceman and that young spiky-haired fellow with much cheapness of boom and a see through bit and we could make it at Auto Audio and a louder place. Like the Street. Random opinion poll
 
Chris Woods from Axis was there flying the CDT and Atomic flags as he has some hardcore dB draggers in his stable of geezers. Also, there were a slew of the DLS enthusiast owners to line up and let folks have an earful. I saw the new Zenec headunit made to replace factory VW decks in a car belonging to one of the Connects2 guys. It adds DVD and navigation and yet matches the OEM dash even down to the font used on the factory-matching buttons. They might even be getting them into VW cars as preference over the VW part at point of import!
 
I saw an old mate, Eddie Farr, whom I recall doing a Formica install once and cutting a shallow angle through the laminate so perfectly that it looked like the edge of a humbug as the layers showed along a box edge. His big works van is an utter beast and has an Hifonics Maximus 10,000 watter driving two huge square Kicker subs in a box with windows. It’s well hard. He sat in the sunshine playing with it via a laptop and a pressure sensor running Term Thingummy SPL software. Not what you’d find at many shows.
 
It was so relaxed, it was lovely. A feeling of a community not everyone knows everyone on the village green but you meet up at the fete while throwing the Wellington. Or horrid pretend amplifier. One funny thing, we destroyed this Koac e-Bay rip-off product by finally using it as a barbecue and apparently the way-beyond-warranty nutters of the decibel drag racing fraternity caught a whiff of what was obviously all too familiar a smell to some of them burning electronics – and looked a bit panicky. They can burn stuff all on their own without needing charcoal and BBQ lighters!
 
A huge thank you to all who showed up, both trade and regular folks and particularly Kenwood who donated a whole boxful of really smart collared Polo shirts with embroidered Kenwood bits for all those who entered the Throw The Koac competition. It was so much fun that it was hard to clear the field at the end of the day and reminded me of when I used to manage a rehearsal studio for musicians. You had to be nice yet firm as they were so chilled to your place’s thing..
Come on you loverly people! Aincha got no ‘omes to go to?
All pictures (bar four of them) copyright Steve ‘Spike’ Brown Blue Feather Photography

www.bluefeather.co.uk“>

Which is why they are so much better looking shots than you normally get!
And here’s where to click to see a funky cool slideshow in the newly imported gallery system. We LOVE this!
link