Ice Ice, Baby! ICELAB’s Spectacular Spectrumica

Packaging and accessories

Other than the famous ‘takeaway box’ that greeted new owners of what was then one of the most expensive IEMs ever made – yes Traillii, I’m looking at you – most companies put special effort into the packaging and accessories of their flagship IEMs.

ICELAB doesn’t disappoint with Spectrumica, and arguably goes a step or two beyond the norm. Inside a protective thick cardboard box you’ll find the actual product box, sleeved in an all-white and gold cover with silkscreened graphics, product details, and even a measurement graph that hints at what you’re in for.

Removing the sleeve reveals another sturdy box, this time with a transparent lid that shows off the internals. All the different components are set into a firm foam base:

• A round metal carry case with a clear, perspex lid
• Custom-made Mica cable, complete with a leather cable clamp/keychain
• Three different sets of tips, including Eletech Baroque, HiBy Liquid Silicone, and foamies
• A perforated and sub-divided mesh pouch for IEM protection
• A metal owner’s card and cleaning accessories

Along with the all-metal shells, the packaging is both practical and premium, leaving me wanting for nothing when it comes to usability or maintenance.

Design and fit

The first time I saw Spectrumica I thought to myself ‘well hey, that’s different’. The styling is atypical, but I immediately connected with the design language, especially the speaker-like ‘woofer cone’ embellishment on the faceplate. Initially it reminded me of the woofer cones used by B&W in their premium floor-standing speakers, and according to Ice, I wasn’t far off:

“The faceplate design draws inspiration from both satellite ground stations and the legendary ProAc 1SC speaker. Applying light reveals a striking gold reflection within the silver ‘satellite’ elements.”

According to ICELAB, the shells are made from aerospace-grade aluminium, providing high mechanical strength to enhance bone conduction while maintaining a comfortable, lightweight fit. 

Drawing on years of experience in custom IEMs, ICELAB applies ergonomic expertise to achieve an optimised metal shell design. The casing undergoes repeated testing and fine adjustments to maximise sound performance while ensuring durability. Specifically, at the bone conduction contact point, the shell’s thickness is precision-reduced to an impressive 0.4mm, minimising signal loss and distortion from material interference.

Make no mistake, Spectrumica’s 5-axis precision-CNC shells are chonky, with a body that sits well outside my outer ear when worn. That said, because the shells are so light, comfort is indeed good to excellent, at least from a weight and skin-feel perspective, with one caveat: the nozzles.

Goodness knows why Spectrumica’s nozzles are so wide, measuring almost 6.5mm in diameter. To put that into perspective, that’s barely a couple of millimetres smaller than the openings of my ear canals – especially my left ear – so throwing a silicone tip on these leaves precious little wiggle room, so to speak.

Thankfully the nozzles are quite short, which means it’s mostly the tip that goes in my ears. It took me a while to find a tip combination that worked, or at least that didn’t feel like I was trying to shove a sock in a keyhole. Even the smallest size Baroque tips left most of the earpiece outside my ear, and probably not flush enough for optimal bone conduction surface contact.

As it turns out, one of my go-to tips for both comfort and sound, SpinFit’s CP145, were the glass slipper to my ears’ Cinderella, without which this review would have gone in a completely different direction.

My one suggestion to Ice for future IEM iterations: narrow down those nozzles!

Each IEM is fitted with a standard non-recessed 2-pin connector, which seems to have a click-like mechanism for gripping cable pins and holding them securely. Either that or they’re just tight, so take care not to exert too much force and keep those pins straight when connecting your cables.

Speaking of which, the Mica cable has to be one of the more impressive ‘stock’ cables I’ve seen, akin to some of the name-brand PW Audio and Eletech cables that several companies now use as standard, and even better in some ways.

I’ll talk more about the technology in the cable below, but from a design and usability perspective, it’s sleek, kink-free, and devoid of any microphonics whatsoever. It also has rather cool hardware, including a ‘see-through’ Y-splitter and a 4.4mm plug that houses its own spinner.

Overall, once I’ve secured the cable and nestled the shells in my ears, I can move about very easily without breaking the seal, and isolation is above average for a shallow-fit IEM too. The cool touch and gently ribbed surface of the metal shells (that incidentally gives me Sennheiser IE900 vibes) is also quite comforting for long-term use, and I’m fairly confident these shells can withstand a fair amount of abuse without incurring significant damage.

Continue to tech and specs…