Ice Ice, Baby! ICELAB’s Spectacular Spectrumica

Tech and specs

There’s nothing ‘ordinary’ about Spectrumica’s looks, and the same goes for what’s inside. Other than the ‘off-the-shelf’ Sonion drivers, advanced as they may be, almost everything ICELAB packs into Spectrumica is bespoke.

P-Sync (Phase Synchronisation). One of the more impressive technical innovations in Spectrumica is its precision-made phase synchronisation cavity, dubbed P-Sync, which uses a shared ceramic coil for its dynamic and bone conduction drivers. As Ice explains it:

“Our bone conduction implementation is unique: it incorporates a sound tube alongside the dynamic driver. This serves two purposes: providing front venting to reduce ear canal resonance, and minimising phase issues between the dynamic and bone conduction driver by using a shared coil and chamber in a push-pull configuration.”

The motivation for P-Sync stems from ICELAB’s dissatisfaction with conventional bone conduction drivers.

“We experimented with various bone conduction drivers, including Sonion’s, but couldn’t find one meeting our standards. Consequently, we collaborated with our dynamic driver manufacturer to develop a custom bone conduction driver and housing system.

“My understanding is that these drivers simulate mid/low-mid frequency vibrations that conventional drivers struggle to reproduce naturally. Some bone conduction hybrids emphasise vibration excessively, creating a strong physical sensation. I question this approach; the vibration should subtly mimic real acoustic resonance, gently convincing the brain of its authenticity.”

He continues:

“For Spectrumica, we incorporated the bone conduction driver to solve a specific problem: the difficulty of replicating the resonant body sound of instruments like violins and cellos using only balanced armature or dynamic drivers. Without bone conduction, I feel that violin sounds often come across as unnaturally clean, cold, and lacking emotion – missing the instrument’s body resonance.

“We calibrated our custom BC driver using listening tests, particularly with Ravel’s Tzigane performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter, where the driver’s contribution to the violin’s texture is clearly audible.”

Audiophile-grade components. ICELAB exclusively uses high-end components inside Spectrumica, including the internal wiring, carefully selected to achieve the target tonality.

In the crossover network:

• ELNA Cerafine capacitors (red): known for richness and warmth, these are used with the Sonion 2300-series midrange drivers for a full and emotional midrange.
• ELNA capacitors (blue): a cleaner, clearer-sounding variant used in the high-pass filter to maintain resolution, imaging, and soundstage.

A challenge with these high-end electrolytic capacitors is their sensitivity and extended burn-in requirement due to electrolyte properties. As such, Ice recommends at least 200 hours of burn-in to fully activate them, plus a 10-minute warm-up before each listening session.

Internal wiring:

• Mid/High/EST drivers: gold-plated pure silver wire for enhanced detail and clarity.
• DD and BC Drivers: highest-grade 7N OCC copper wire to ensure sufficient power delivery.

Mica cable. One little-known fact about ICELAB is that they also make cables. In fact, I’m reliably told they are the preferred OEM cable manufacturer for some very well-known branded cables. So, it comes as no surprise that Spectrumica’s stock cable is so deeply embedded in the IEM’s overall design, it forms the second part of its name.

Made with Litz 4S-braided 23.8 AWG OCC copper and gold-plated OCC copper core, combined with 21.9 AWG silver and silver-plated OFC shielding in a 3D-HALO shielding structure, Mica is far more than just your average thin-gauge throwaway SPC stock cable that makes most IEMs sound like a kindergarten acoustic recital.

Even the hardware is custom made, with a die-cut metal Y-splitter and a Taiwan-made 4.4mm TRRRS plug. As Ice puts it:

“Our goal was to preserve high resolution (using pure silver) while adding warmth to the mids (using gold-plated copper in the positive core). The entire cable manufacturing process – stranding, shield braiding, and PVC extrusion – is done in-house at our own cable factory in China to guarantee the highest quality.

“Final soldering and braiding are performed by our experienced technicians in Hong Kong. While upgrade cables exist, I believe that achieving a significant improvement over Mica would likely require a very substantial investment, as its quality rivals many premium aftermarket cables.”

Product summary

• Name: ICELAB Spectrumica
• Drivers: quadbrid 1x ceramic diaphragm dynamic, 4x Sonion BA, 2x Sonion e-stat and 1x coil bone conduction
• Sensitivity: 93.5dB @1kHz
• Impedance: 7Ω
• RRP: $1,999/£1,799
• Website: hk.icelab.com

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