ICE T18
I started last year’s write up with the following and if you are a noob, you can read it, if an experienced TA-er, then skip the bit in the quotes…
“The Ice T meetings have a long and illustrious history for Talk Audio. For as well as meets up and down the land and those on the beach, there is the yearly bash held in a field near the hub of the Car Audio Direct operation in deepest Oxfordshire. This year’s was the eighteenth, hence T-18.
You can feel it getting posh on the M40 entering Oxfordshire as you drive across that horrid cut through the downs the environmentalists tried to stop. We headed into the wilds following our Googlemaps and sat navs and arrived at the Field Of Dreams. A site that apparently holds steam rallies and the like, the locals seem to be both cool and far enough away to make it all possible.”
I did previously fail to explain that there were two T-meets a year for the first years, which was was how we had got to eighteen. But this year we were quietly delighted to be celebrating the tenth year of Talk Audio.
Our Easy-Up took pride of place at the top of the avenue of cars and vans and we have had a small PA tucked under it this year. Made mockery of by the mind bendingly powerful vans full of Acsendant Audio Steve Meade subwoofers and huge stacks of SPL Dynamics amplifiers. Some say it was the wind that lifted the tent up and flung it over my car, pushing over the PA in the process. But I think it was Am Singh’s bass emanations.
We saw the Steve Meade subwoofer-with-two-motors and marvelled. I saw several people marvel. Talk about BoomZilla’s fist!
Matt ‘thejoose’ Sprigg showed up with his huge Shogun, called Project Big Black. Filled with Ground Zero kit which is proving mighty badass. He made the ground ripple as he arrived and has scored some mind bending low frequency, high Sound Pressure Level scores in various bass contests, which is delighting his sponsors, Connects2, who are the UK distributors of Ground Zero. I even called them to see what they thought and Mike Hulse said, “He’s the feature car in the trade press this month. We’re very proud of him, He’s doing really well with it.”
Matt’s also had his seats retrimmed, complete with snazzy embroidery and the whole thing is looking extremely classy as a result. I of course would love to see a ten grand spray paint job with artwork all over the outside, with images of London after a Richter 9.1 ‘quake (most of the city would be destroyed.)
It was a pleasant and relaxed day…
LiamB and his lass Chantal drove all the way from Devon…
While Bass Folie A Deux couple Daz and Helen scored the magic 160dB and were looking for a bit more, like possessed Bass Munchkins…
And the long awaited rebirth of ‘The Mayhem’ Chevy Astro, filled with Ascendant Audio Steve Meade subwoofers….
We saw the new dual application ‘One Look’ double DIN headunit from Alpine – as featured in the Talk Audio news columns and also checked out the sexy PDX amp based install in Atsu Takeda’s company Passat. Very tasteful and yet potent. Just check out those top end speakers in the A pillars.
Poor Alex Mitchel had me descend upon him, press ‘record’ on video and then not let up on the poor fellah until he had done his run! He was genuinely worried about bursting yet another windscreen as he knows they go at just over 160dB! His huge score was actually him holding it back! Do bear with it, it’s an unedited clip from driving in to scoring over 160dB, with no bits missing, despite me bleating about “two and a half minutes of video”.
And we also attracted a dedicated audiophile-struck postgrad student, Nitin Katya, who came along to measure some very posh cars’ systems with a sophisticated piece of metering equipment.
We did, in the event, allow the likes of Nitin and the true SQ fans to position themselves just far enough away such that they could identify the third triangle on the left and we all had a lovely day. The burger van was brilliant, far wider choice of options than I have ever seen and I had a gourmet Stilton Burger and it was delicious! (And sinful for a fat bloke, but I was working ever so hard, honest!)
Here’s to T-19!
Oh how embarrassing! A huge omission – was not to put in print as well as having been effusive on video, by way of thanks to those Talk Audio Associate companies who supported our event. They were midbass with cars with Edge, Vibe, Black Death and more inside, including Nathan Carey, the Celsus guys with the contest launched to design their new car’s system, Alpine’s Atsuhiro Takeda-san who showed us their Passat, and of course the major effort put in by FOUR, who’s PA car is sounding sweeter every time I hear it. Thanks guys, and also to the folks who came, from Am and his Mayhem, to Nitin and his meter and all the bass heads, especially Dazza Millard..rrrespect to dB Drag!