The Iceman Cometh

TA brings you the full-octane story of the most terrifying street basser ever! Freed from paper costs, here is the fullest SP on Ian ‘Iceman’ Pinder’s awesome new reputation-rebuilding street destroyer. First seen in Fast Car as an exclusive by the same author, this far longer version is like a director’s cut for geeks! Read on
Back when yo momma was riding in Cortinas there was this tall dude in a bandana who would show up at sound offs and out-bass EVERYBODY. His boot was a secret stash of unknown amplifiers, (they were the then legendary Kenwood KAC-1020s) his dash bristled with headunits. He had a cassette deck, a CD deck, even a Digital Audio Tape or DAT deck (which was incredibly rare even then) all stacked in the centre like a tower of flickering magic and his bass was just insane. So much louder than anyone else’s, he was seen as some kind of weird gang banger. Most were a bit scared of him.
The Sound Off concept was freshly imported from the USA under the IASCA banner. The organisers were really into ‘hifi’ and did the basshead thing only with great reluctance. So the Bass Boys were reviled creatures. It was just supposed ‘to be a bit of fun’ and Ian ‘Iceman’ Pinder was the worst for taking it Far Too Seriously.
Like Breathing.
Bandana-wearing, trophy-thieving ****er, his scores usually beat the next poor sap by at least ten decibels. If you were in an SPL competition and he arrived, you might just as well go home. This actually worked against the contests’ success for a while as opposing Ian was literally like fighting with a Gorilla.
You lost.

His cars down the years were always deeper and fatter of bass than any other installer could manage and he has had legal threat letters for dislodging ornaments in pensioners’ flats as he drove along a regular throbular route. They actually got a chap from the council with a microphone to go round this little old lady’s house and when Ice drove by and bassed them, they nicked him!
Throughout all the time since then, Ian has been beavering away turning out meaty and deep installs for those in the know as a solo virtuoso. (His operation is called Ice Audio and can be reached on 07967 409 398.) In those intervening years he has done so much for so many others, I wondered, ‘What would happen if he was given free rein on a bass install where he could pretty much have what he liked?’ What would the Iceman if you let him loose naked (figuratively speaking, wuurrghh!) in a warehouse belonging to those Legends Of The Lows, Orion?
Something pretty fu**ing frightening is the truth and he delivers. So it was with delight that I managed to get the Iceman a collection of awesome sponsorship deals. I sold his soul to Panasonic and to Odyssey batteries and best of all to Orion and West Coast Customs by Directed Electronics. Now they all own a piece of his narrow but high-up ass it’s how it works. He’s also put around £20,000 in hours and paupered his own wallet into the van. The total retail value if you wanted to get one built just like it, would be in the region of £65,000. And then you’d have to paint it, get the airbag suspension and a bit more, so call it £70k!
The Build and the Kit
This was once a works van. It ain’t now, it’s all install. Every panel has been rebuilt in glassfibre resin and filler and finished in fine two-pack car paint. Six huge fu**-off weapons grade Orion HCCA 15in woofers are the main story, closely followed by Orion speakers like the inside was some sort of tropical toad’s lair and it had laid its spawn all over the panels, forming a tessellation of speaker-spawn. Every surface has speakers.
Small ones, medium ones in bulgy bits, bigger ones in a nest of its brethren – and then you look around and there’s another column of speakers. They are all from the six and a half and five and a quarter inch Orion speaker component sets HCCA P6.2 & P5.2 and mostly driven actively. No time alignment or over-tweaky approach here. This is strictly old-school hook-it-all-up-and-cane-it. There was an issue with the Precision Power EQ system that wasn’t quite low enough in noise floor for a system of this sheer insane magnitude. So although their displays are nestled in the dash like they belong, it is a hidden Symmetry EPX that is used to control the system’s main preamp dealings. There are two Orion EQ-30s for sound shaping and Iceman uses a truly old school Kenwood KEC-202 half DIN dash-mounted crossover for part of the system.

Like the installers from Dolby Laboratories who used a brace of Kenwood quarter DIN equalisers in their first ever Dolby ProLogic II demo in a van that I wrote about, it is recognised for it’s excellence here. The Dolby PLII demo rig was mobile so it could be shown to different users and had £5,000 Lake Theatre Pro processors installed on inverters as that was all that was made up to that point hence their need of the demo wagon. Oddly enough, the article was then on Dolby’s own website and was my proudest web-publishing achievement before my Talk Audio days began.
The Iceman plays it like a musical instrument with his track selections all known for note-exact musical content and where and when they hit and how hard, so Ian can balance his power use with pure showmanship. It’s far more skilled a job running one of these things to impress than merely whanging the volume up.

I’m well impressed with the Panasonic front end. Below 40Hz, the vibration is intense and most CD or DVD decks would jump, even top brand jobs but these Pannys are made to be driven hard and spun a lot. It’s robust hardware that can spin a crisp disc even at the sort of vibration levels that’ll cause involuntary orgasms in women (Legendarily at 33Hz but the van’s tuned to 32Hz  and that’s one lower.) and allow hair-trick grade air movement at the windows when open and propagate ground-rippling bass. It all comes from the woofers in their ported four inch thick walled bass enclosure. This is thicker than could be afforded for professional public address use. That’s why the van weighs 2.02 tonnes, with 1.42 tonnes of it on the back wheels.
The Odyssey PC2250 batteries Ice uses are the same that the western world’s military uses to start things. Like Tanks. Best of all, you can fill them up fast. The ‘inrush’ current capability of these batteries is phenomenal, simply poohing on the yellow topped things. Iceman really needs the planned replacement 2.3 litre Cavalier V6 engine to drive the shiny 300 ampere Powermaster alternator he has got a hold of. He needs it push juice back into his system after the amps have sucked it out and the speakers have converted it into unstoppable sound energy.
When parked, Ian uses a never-seen-before-in-all-ice mighty 4/0 gauge wire system to connect a secondary bank of Odyssey power. Nine thousand amperes becomes 18,000A PHCA when set up for shows! He can shake the ground and disturb your ancestors’ neighbours. I’m so proud of him. (Sniffle)
Inside The Ride
Every single panel is custom scratch created from dash to ‘A’ and ‘B’ pillars to the tailgate liner and those mad doors with twenty speakers in each. Open one and more power than most blokes’ entire systems points at you in mids and tweeters alone. Ice was wanting to hook up a 5,000 watt amplifier to run each door then found out that the HCCA-D5000 bass amps were so optimised for bass that they simply didn’t pass the upper frequencies he wanted to make ten thousand watts of stereo output with. Ice was startled to find no one had ever even thought of being this extreme anywhere else. ‘Ohh, right.’
This door cluster makes an Acicular or needle-shaped ‘throw’ of sound if opened to the world, so you can hear it down an entire show-hall roadway, past other ‘loud’ cars. Ice starts up and you see the people sort of act like the car was a magnet and they were iron filings. It’s about that quick. THROB = Throng with the Iceman.

 The dash bristles with speakers and there are switches everywhere that only Ian understands. Even the roof has electronics mounted in it. (It’s where the top notch Orion EQs live.) The real story is that Brobdignaggian bass wall, though. Six huge fifteens, twelve voice coils, well over a thousand square inches of violently rigid HCCA Orion weapons-grade woofers, several thousand High Current watts of power, driving via the lungs from hell. Thirty-two cubic feet of stupefyingly low-tuned ported bass cave with four inch thick walls, as rigid as rock. This is a bass hell or the ultimate Ice experience, depending upon your perverted soul’s urge.
His Glacial Iceberg-ness
Iceman is a bass legend who has done more media than anyone I know except my mum. Which makes the both of them Media Slappers. He’s been on TV on MTV, Channel Four, ITV, Channel Five, Sky One, Cable One, Men & Motors, Meridian South Today and was in ‘Death By Bass’ which was an entry into the Lloyds Film Challenge. He’s been in the Daily Telegraph, Car Hifi (twice) Fast Car as a participant in ‘**** SPL Gimme Richter’ when we used a seismograph (I am going to do this again with Fast Car!) Fast Forward: Car Stereo & Security (which became Total Car Audio) and major features in Max Power and Revs. In their Top 100 Modded Cars Of All Time, (six years after the car came out and placed at number 72) the quote was ‘This is where big ice cars all started’ Utterly unafraid of huge TV cameras and having models draped over him alike. He loves it, the Press Darling. As you can tell, there’s definitely a lurve thing going on here for me, but the coolest thing is that you can catch up with the Iceman and the van at shows. Believe me, he LIVES for running big tunes in the sun with the doors open and now he’s finally got a truly worthy replacement for the Cortina that carved his legend. You don’t have to believe a damn word of the above but if you are into this stuff you absolutely do have to go to some shows this year and be part of that throng. it’s worth waiting for to see and to experience for yourself.
See ICEMAN’s Astra at the Modified Nationals this weekend! Peterborough Showground Sat & Sun 23rd & 24th May 09…
If you want to see the superb photography that Fast Car did (with a couple of mine) then click here for the gallery of images:
link
You can hire The Iceman’s awesome skills by calling 07967 409 398 or mailing him at [email protected] or you can just PM him on the Talk Audio forum His user name is ORIGINAL ICEMAN
Read on for the full system lowdown…..
SYSTEM PLAN

SPECIFICATIONS (overview)
VAN 1997 Vauxhall Astra Mk III
ENGINE 1.7 turbo diesel. (polished V6 Cavalier conversion for 300A PowerMaster planned)
WHEELS/TYRES TSW Diablo alloys with 225/40/18 tyres (580lb rating needs 740lb rated though!)
CHASSIS Three grand’s worth of Ray Vern airbag suspension, so he can lift or slam
ICE SOURCES Panasonic CQ-VD7003N DVD Tuner, Panasonic CQ-C8403N CD Tuner, Directed DMP-740 40GB HDD with screen and docking screen-mount, 2x DVD decks inside rear tailgate screens
SCREENS Two fully- swivelling 17 inch West Coast Customs OHDW17.2 with DVD players, two 7 inch HMV701.7, one seven inch screen in Panasonic 7003 head unit
SPECIAL FEATURES Truly ridiculous bass and Uber-cutting highs and mids Ice can be heard for MILES
CABLES/BATTERIES £2,000 worth from 4/0Ga (yes!), 8x 39kg Odyssey PC2250 batteries (Mod No.= 5 sec Pulse Current in amps! Therefore 18,000 PHCA of batteries)
ACCESSORIES Pacific Accessory Corporation PAC-1 RCA level controller for bass level control, multiple Direct Connection power and earth distribution and fuse boxes, both with and without digital voltage displays
PROCESSORS Two Orion EQ-30 Equalisers, AudioControl Epic160 Bass restoration/160dB SPL meter, Symmetry EPX, Kenwood KEC-202 crossovers, Precision Power DCX-730 (now DFA)
AMPS Twenty, all Orion. 6x HCCA-D5000 5kw mono (bass); 10x HP2800 2 x 400w; 3x HP4800 4 x 200w; one HP2300 2 x 150w. Around 25 kilowatts RMS, fifty kilowatts peak
SPEAKERS All Orion: 82 in total, 74 in cabin including six 2 Ohm Dual Voice Coil; eight in tailgate, 88 voice coils driven. Comprising 15 sets Orion P6.2 5 sets P5.2 components and 6 Orion H2 HCCA fifteen inch subwoofers. 1,500w RMS each, 5,000w burp rated, 100mm/4 inch Xmax mechanical (cone travel)
TOTAL POWER/SPL 24,600 watts RMS (50,000 watts peak) and over 150dB at around 20Hz. Tuned to 32Hz. Can induce heart failure, orgasm or a simultaneous combination of both.
THANKS
Are due to major sponsors’ Directed Electronics’ Mark Nash & his team for a serious throbsworth of Orion and West Coast Customs equipment, plus the Clifford security to look after it all with.
Odyssey batteries by Merlin Equipment 01202 69 79 79 www.merlinequipment.com
And the help:
James ‘Pixie’ Harbottle Padawan protégé to Ian’s lanky Yoda
Rob ‘Boy Scout’ Neve – chief brew-master and caffeine provider
Darren ‘Freddie’ Golds for the loan of his Cobras for photo shoots
Katy Cartwright for her love, support and particularly for her not leaving him when he spent so much on the van! Without her, nothing would have been possible. Never underestimate the power of emotional support.
Behind every great man. 
And ME for thieving ALL of the above on Ian’s behalf!
EQUIPMENT LIST
Amplifiers
6x HCCA-D5000 (5,000w)
10x HP 2800 (2x400w)
3x HP 4800 (4x200w)
1x HP 2300 (2x 150w)
Speakers
6x HCCA H2 Fifteen inch subwoofers
15x Pairs of 6.5 inch P6.2 components
5x Pairs of 5.25 inch P5.2 components
Processors
Rockford-Fosgate Symmetry EPX2
2x Orion EQ30
Precision Power DCX 730
AudioControl Epic 160 SPL meter/extrapolative bass restoration
Kenwood KEC-202 active crossover
Sources/Screens
2x West Coast Customs OHDW 17.2 swivel screens with integral DVD deck
2x HMV 701.7 7 inch LCD TFT
Directed DMP-740 40GB Hard Disc Drive that docks with big screens
Panasonic CQ-VD7003N DVD deck with 7 inch screen
Panasonic CQ-C8403N CD Tuner
Cables/Wires
8x Power cable Red 1/0 25ft rolls4x Power cable Black 1/0 25ft rolls
Braided silver 8Ga power cable 100ft roll
Braided 8Ga power cable 100ft roll
Braided black 4Ga power cable 100ft roll
Braided blue 8Ga power cable 250ft roll
250ft roll of 12 gauge speaker cable
2x 500ft rolls of 16 gauge speaker cable
8x distribution blocks 1/0Ga in to 4 gauge x 4 out
4x ANL/AGU fuse holder distribution blocks
4x Platinum Series coaxial cables
2x  Graphite series RCA cables
21x Silver series RCA in 11x6ft, 6×1.5foot, 4x3foot
ANL Fuses in 8x 300A, 4x 200A, 4x 100A; PLUS 60a AGU fuses
DVD Style- EXTRAS FEATURE:
A brief Big-Up Biography produced to satisfy demand from the USA to know who this man is, since even they cannot believe what he has done! Created and sent to the USA via Directed Electronics UK.
Ian ‘Iceman’ Pinder is as close to a true legend in mobile electronics as the UK ever bred. He is Rivera, Fukuda and Brown, all rolled into one insane street bass obsessed package. A striking near seven-footer, Iceman has been involved in countless media events and publications he ‘gives good press’. Also the inspiration for the Nineties cult cartoon strip BoomZilla character, published in Car Stereo & Security magazine (about to be resurrected as Son of BoomZilla) as above all, his cars were just the craziest, loudest and most crowd pleasing at any event he visited for years. When Ice started up, the crowd would get twenty deep around his car, all others ignored in awe.
Without even knowing why (perhaps he can see sound waves in air like Keanu saw The Matrix?) Iceman created doors so filled with drivers, they drove an Acicular (needle-shaped) throw of sound clean past all the other cars to grab those on-axis by the ears, only to be devastated by his street, low-low bass. He can fit more equipment in less space than anyone on the planet and it’ll tear your soul apart. That said, SPL per se at 70Hz for a Burp became a bore beyond 150dB, Iceman likes it looow and all day.
Threatened by the law, adored by his fans, he is utterly unique. His personality is warm and friendly and he especially enjoys the company of like minded lunatics. His Orion, West Coast Customs, Panasonic and Odyssey sponsored Astra van is tearing it up at shows all over the UK this summer.