the iceamp lives?!

mhardy6647

Several years ago, in the bleak midwinter, I espied a woodgrained metal cabinet protruding from an ice and snow bank at the scrap metal pile (!!) at my favorite local audio emporium. It looked just familiar enough. Clawing at it with my hands, I gradually uncovered it from its icy grave. My hands turned red and then numb. I pried and tugged to free it, and was finally successful... except for the power cord. The plug was ensconced in deep frozen snow/ice, and wouldn't budge. With a frozen hand, I fumbled for the knife in my pocket and, clumsily, cut the cord.

My little prize, dirty and wet but surprisingly intact otherwise, spent some time drying out in the garage that winter and then sat, for (literally) years, in my basement.

Today, Mrs. H and I were going through things in the basement. I happened upon the little "iceamp" (not to be confused with an ICE amp) under some other stuff. Dragged it out, stripped the ends of the cord and spliced a power cord on to it.
Plugged it in to a Variac and brought it up towards line voltage (no source or speakers, MAIN speaker switch off, and volume to zero). No magic smoke escaped, and the blue pilot light lit. Next, checked for DC on the outputs and found none (actually, I think this amp might be cap coupled, come to think of it). Finally, gingerly, hooked up a source (CDP) and some test speakers. It worked! The controls weren't even too dirty. I was pretty pleasantly surprised.

And what is this Iceamp, I hear you ask?

stuwee

Hehe, too funny, I knew it would be a Marantz before I saw the pic, they did make the best back then.

janmike

That is awesome. I bet Marantz would love to hear that story.

mhardy6647

stuwee wrote: »

Hehe, too funny, I knew it would be a Marantz before I saw the pic, they did make the best back then.

well, no... that'd be the Yamahas... but the 1060 ain't bad. This is the second 1060 that I've found at the dump. Not sure what the significance of that is...

skipf

The 1060 was my first good quality amp. Still my favorite Marantz amp. Nice find for sure.

George Grand

Have you ever actually purchased something?

mhardy6647

George Grand wrote: »

Have you ever actually purchased something?

what? who? me?

I bought a Yamaha CA-610II from Soundscape in Baltimore, MD in 1978. Still have the receipt. Oh, and a demo pair of Polk Audio Monitor Series Model 7A at about the same time. I think that's why I am here.

Interestingly, I have yet to scroe a pair of Polks at my favorite emporium, George. I suspect the Yankees were too smitten with their ARs, Advents, KLHs, Allisons, Cizeks, EPIs, and Boses to even look at something from B-more... even if their purveyor did like to wear a white lab coat.

skipf wrote: »

The 1060 was my first good quality amp. Still my favorite Marantz amp. Nice find for sure.

Not mine... :-P

cnh

mhardy6647 wrote: »

what? who? me?

I bought a Yamaha CA-610II from Soundscape in Baltimore, MD in 1978. Still have the receipt. Oh, and a demo pair of Polk Audio Monitor Series Model 7A at about the same time. I think that's why I am here.

Interestingly, I have yet to scroe a pair of Polks at my favorite emporium, George. I suspect the Yankees were too smitten with their ARs, Advents, KLHs, Allisons, Cizeks, EPIs, and Boses to even look at something from B-more... even if their purveyor did like to wear a white lab coat.



Not mine... :-P

lol, I think I own examples of most of those speakers, except for BOSE and Allisons. Of course, I qualify as a Yankee as well.

cnh

mhardy6647

me, too... haven't bought many (actually, AFAIK) any of them, though :-)

I have bought two pairs of Henry Kloss's Cambridge SoundWorks Model Sixes, though (one pair new, one pair used and for a good cause), come to think of it.

Oh... and I did not unfortunately, find my Altec 604E Duplexes at the dump. Can't win 'em all...


EDIT: You should sample a pair of Allisons some time; great, easy to live with loudspeakers. I am fortunate enough to have a pair of the original series Allison Ones.

stuwee

Roy Allison was one of the better speaker designers back then, he had a way of getting tight, clean bass out of a small box. IIRC he did the tiny AR 4x's I have.

mhardy6647

He was a big part of the AR brain trust and, like Koss, also successful on his own. Allison, last I knew, is also still alive although quite old. The Allison Ones are not small... but they, like many Allison speakers, were designed for good response characteristics in real-world rooms.

Streophile interviewed Allison and AR founder Edgar Villchur ca. 2004:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/glorious-time-ars-edgar-villchur-and-roy-allison-allison-part-1

EDIT: Here, courtesy of www.classicspeakerpages.net is the original (1978) Allison speaker line brochure:
http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/library/allison/allison_one_series/allison_one_series_brochure_2/allison_one_series_brochure_2/

here's the Allison One: http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/library/allison/allison_one_series/allison_one_series_brochure_2/allison_one_series_brochure_2/allison_one_series_brochure_5.html

drumminman

A Marantz 1060 was the 2nd amp I ever bought, the first being it's little brother the 1030. It was a great little amp, and I used it until I wanted more power. I eventually bought a Marantz 3200 pre and 240 power amp, which I still have. Haven't used 'em in years though.

IIRC Marantz used to run an ad which displayed a receiver that had been in a house fire and douse in the water used to extinguish it. The owner dried it out and it still worked as before. He wrote a letter to the company, which became part of their ad campaign.

mhardy6647

You're correct about the ad with the charred (immolated) Marantz :-)

reeltrouble1

cool beans...finally an ice amp to satify my own musical heart!!!

hansome looking pieces there.

RT1