My subjective review of the SSA Icon

[newusername 10+ year member]

First thing I will make abundantly clear: most people by now know that I’m a regular poster on SSA and a member of the Tech Team. Aaron did not send this to me to review, I didn’t get it for free, I wasn’t asked to buy it, or any situation in that vein. When I expressed interest in getting an Icon, Aaron asked if I would be willing to review it. I said yes but made sure he understood that if it was a sub-par product, I wouldn’t hold anything back. I feel I have the technical backing and experience to give it a thorough review and I hope you’ll find the same. There were no SPL measurements done because I could really care less about those. This is a purely subjective review to give my opinion on a product that not many people seem to have gotten their hands on yet.

On arrival, I was happy to see the shipped package was in good condition. It was shipped in a well sized sturdy cardboard box with fairly standard packing materials: the standard square base at the bottom, with a stiff Styrofoam “buffer” on each respective side of the container aligned perfectly with the mounting frame of the driver. It was quite hard to shift the driver in any way. I consider this fairly standard packaging, but perhaps a little minimal for my standards. Aside from the protective plastic over the cone, there was no protective Styrofoam or packing peanuts (not that I condone them) over top of the cone; if a large object had fallen directly on top of the package and gone through the container, it would have caused some noticeable damage to the cone and/or dustcap.

There were a couple of issues when I received the Icon: there was a small dent in the dustcap. Because there had been no damage to the container and I can only assume that this occurred at the buildhouse, likely during the packing process. This dent is so small that you can’t see it most days and you can’t see it in the pictures that follow. Though not performance impacting in anyway, Aaron from SSA was very willing to replace it and cover all shipping fees.

Second concern: I didn’t receive any stickers either. Personally, I don’t care, but I can recall about 100 times when people have flipped there lid because they didn’t receive some measly stickers, so this is something that needs to be reviewed. Aaron did not seem very happy to hear that they weren’t included and I expect that this might be the first and last time it occurred.

Third concern: No manual. Given that this driver is sold online, you should be able to find the product information quite easily, and that’s no problem. But including a manual with thiele/small parameters, enclosure recommendations, wiring diagrams, etc. is a great addition that helps add value. This is something Aaron says they are working on and I believe it will be ready in a couple of weeks.

These were very minor things and barely impacted me at all. Keep reading below.

Click to read more...

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Parts and Appearance:

Ok, so on to the actual important stuff! I ordered a 15” Icon with Dual 2 ohm coils. When I pulled it out of the shipping container, I was very satisfied with my purchase. Visually, this is an extremely appealing driver. With a black pulp fiber cone, black 12 spoke basket, black spider, and a simple logo on the black dust cap, this is my kind of colour scheme. Simple, clean, and attractive. I have two personal improvements that would have put this absolutely over the top for me: a magnet boot and an inverted dust cap. With that said, I understand how many people love the industrial look achieved by exposing the magnetic structure, as well as the attraction to boobage. Still, these two touches would have made this the perfect driver for me, visually.

As far as parts are concerned, the Icon uses heavy duty lead wires with felt padding on the underside of the cone to manage any slapping of the tinsel leads against the cone during high excursion. The tinsel leads do seem a touch longer than necessary to me, but it should be noted that I had no slapping at all during testing later on. The Icon has two 8” progressive roll spiders that are fairly stiff out of the box. It takes a little while to break in the polymer coating. With standard spring style push terminals, connections are simple. The heart of the Icon is the motor, something I think they take great pride in at SSA. It uses a 3” diameter anodized aluminum former, wrapped with a 4 layer 22.5 AWG copper voice coil that is 1.8” tall. The magnetic structure consists of a 10mm tall top plate, 3 19mm tall by 170mm wide ceramic magnets. The back plate has a wide 45mm pole vent machined to help cool the coil via convection. The distance from the top of the pole to the top of the back plate is approximately 85mm. Overall, it’s a very solid motor that nets a BL^2/Re of around 89TM. There was no excess glue to be found anywhere on the driver, things were well placed, and I would say that build quality was quite exceptional.

The Icon was used in several different enclosures. The first thing I did, fresh out of the box, was exercise the suspension and we did this quite simply: we put 3600W on it. I put it in an enclosure that was just approximately 2.5 cubic feet net that was tuned to 45 Hz. The resonant frequency of the enclosure was achieved via 2 4" flared ports that were both 12" long. The amplifier used was a QSC PLX3602. With the dual 2 ohm coils wired in series, I achieved a 4 ohm load, which resulted in an output from the amplifier of 3600W when bridged. To test power handling, I used a variety of different sine waves from 50 Hz to 70 Hz. Originally, I used custom sine waves that I made, each frequency consisting of 10 cycles worth of material. I'm happy to say that, though the Icon didn't seem to like it too much and really had some stank going, it wasn't damaged. I wasn't willing to risk using longer periods. It should be noted that this enclosure is not a good idea for you to use and was only used to test thermal power handling; port noise was very noticeable at all frequencies, but I was able to keep the driver within it's excursion limits, which was important to avoid damaging it mechanically.

Obviously, I gave the Icon a break at this point. There were a number of different enclosures that we tried it in after this with 500W (unless otherwise noted), and my listening observations will follow the pictures of the Icon.

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Pictures:

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

What we listened to:

Young Jeezy - Hypnotize

It's rap so it was really hard for me to listen to. I will say that output on Hypnotize was very impressive in the ported enclosure and surprisingly refined. Hypnotize was shaking the fine China, no doubt about that. In a sealed enclosure, the sound was a little too neutral and laid back for this type of music.

Q Lazzarus - Goodbye Horses

A rather peculiar song you might be familiar with from a few different soundtracks (Silence of the Lambs, Clerks 2). It's actually not a terrible song and with good subs and strong midbass, you can really shake some things up with this track. The Icon was very tight and produced each note accurately.

36 Crazyfists - At the End of August

At the 3:28 mark of this song, there is the solo screaming with some very low frequency drums. They can be quite powerful, especially with the additional reverberation after each drum hit. The Icon was bang on here. The opening drum and bass line needs to be exceedingly tight, particularly in the sound pause in material at the :40, 1:18, 1:39, and a few other times throughout the song. The Icon really excelled here in both the sealed and ported enclosures.

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (full album)

Really a great, great album. On "Second Hand News", bass should not be overpowering, nor should there be any overshoot or blur to the sound. "Dreams" has the running bass line in 4/4 time that is a little more powerful and stops and starts on a dime. Tonally, it's a bit deceiving; it is a little relaxed during it's duration but borderline snappy when picked right, as it is on this song. Skipping ahead a bit, Silver Springs is another beautifully simple song. The Icon achieved all of the above without any problems when sealed. When ported, output was too much for my mains and too strong on the bottom. The sealed rolloff worked great for this whole album. ***You'll notice there are a lot of reviews that describe a driver as sloppy on some songs but accurate on others; this is quite often related to level matching your subs to your upper frequency content. If your bass is overpowering, it will sound sloppy.***

Fear Factory - Cars

A remake of an old classic that is awful in it's own right. I picked this song solely for it's ability to shake things up. In the sealed enclosure, the Icon was perhaps a bit too laid back for such a dominating track with such a commanding bass line. It was bang on in the both the medium and large ported enclosures though.

Evergreen Terrace - Mad World

A good hardcore cover of the Gary Jules classic. Great drum work during the chorus line, particularly the double pedal that is still very tonally rich. This is a tough bit for a lot of subwoofers to play right, as many will capture the sharpness of the double pedal but will miss the rather deep tone of each strike. The driving beat in this song is very easy to handle but it's that chorus line where several have stumbled.

CKY - Flesh Into Gear

This is probably the best song CKY has recorded but the drum work and bass line are hard to reproduce accurately together. Where the relatively few low frequency drum strikes are sharp, the bass line is very hazy as a direct result of the guitar effects intended in the song. In the ported enclosure, the impact was really there, but it was sonically a real challenge to differentiate between the bass guitar and the drums. In the sealed enclosure, it was better to listen to, but some output that would have been appreciated was lost.

Feist - My Moon, My Man (Boys Noize Remix)

Though this is an absolute abomination to do to such a good song, I have a feeling this would be really popular amongst most. The driving beat that accompany's much of the song is not particularly pronounced at all, and the Icon matched that in both sealed and ported enclosures. At the 1:15 mark, the stronger drum beats come in. They are steady with very little fluctuation and require a driver that will faithfully match each beat identically. The Icon does that fairly well.

Joanna Newsom - Y's

Undoubtedly one of the best folk/indie albums I've heard in some time. I can't count how many threads I've seen asking about music to use when listening for SQ; this is the one that is incredible and never mentioned. The one song we listened to repeatedly was Emily. Bass is so infrequent on this track that getting it right is absolutely critical to successful reproduction. There are a few chords played on the cello in this song that require the most perfect tonality a subwoofer is capable of. Though the Icon sounded quite good, it wasn't perfect. It's kind of hard to explain, but I have heard this album so many times and am such a cello fan that this song could afford absolutely zero leeway. Unfortunately, the Icon didn't match up here.

Metallica - Helpless

A harder to find track from the $5.98 EP (Garage Days Re-Revisited) that is quick and deadly. Though theres not a ton of high amplitude bass or drum work in this track, what is there is very quick. I would describe the Icon as really quick and to the point on this one. The boost in output from the ported enclosure was actually nice and helped really rock the house.

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Enclosures used:

Sealed 1.5 cubic feet - Qtc 0.800

Fairly even response here. Didn't sound particularly top heavy, which is atypical of many drivers in this alignment, but found low end response to be lacking. When we stepped it up to 1kW, it was an audibly more intense sound, but still not that powerful feeling that strong bass leaves you with. I'd describe it as almost dull and, personally, I wouldn't use this speaker in this alignment. It's probably a good thing that SSA doesn't recommend it.

Sealed 2.0 cubic feet - Qtc 0.707

The infamous Butterworth alignment. Top end wasn't much different than we had heard with the smaller enclosure, but everything 50 Hz or lower was improved. I found it to be a fairly warm sound that most people would find rather pleasant. I would describe the "attack" as fairly controlled and above average, though not with the same sterile sound that I prefer. This is probably a good option for some who are limited on space. When we put 1kW on it, output really improved, but at frequencies below 25 Hz, it was beginning to run out of gas.

Sealed 3.0 cubic feet - Qtc 0.650

As we moved to larger and larger alignments, my impressions of this driver improved. I would say that the 15" version of the Icon has a sweetspot that falls in between 2.5-3.0 cubic feet. Low end response continued to improve without any noticeable loss of accuracy. For most people, I think this will be a favourite, but it doesn't have the Xmax to blow your mind at low frequencies. I would recommend using no more than 800-1000W in this enclosure with a subsonic filter set at 25-30 Hz. You won't really gain too much more output, though there's still some mechanical clearance there. This was used for most musical testing outlined above.

Sealed 5.5 cubic feet - Qtc 0.570

This is approaching a critically damped alignment, one of my favourites in the house and likely much larger than anyone will use. Again, for home theater and really low frequency use, you can keep the power to a minimum and still have acceptable output, but Xmax is the limiter here. It's kind of funny to think that 5 years ago, this would have been almost satisfying output at 20 Hz, but now there are so many drivers that are capable of sweeping huge amounts of air that would probably be better for use in home theatre or music with very low frequency content. Still sounded very good, but you're probably better off with a smaller enclosure if you're using this in a vehicle if you're looking for output in the frequencies more common in music.

Ported 3.0 cubic feet tuned to 30 Hz

Naturally, low end picked up quite nicely. The addition of a helmholtz resonator really goes a long way for boosting the Icon's output in the 40-60 Hz range. It has the motor strength and electrical damping to really utilize the port's output without the sound that is typical of lower Q, over motored designs. With tones and music that approached and exceeded the enclosure's resonance, I found that output dropped a little bit, but when coupled with the transfer function of my living room, it wasn't a problem at all. Still very accurate in this enclosure and satisfying to listen to; this is from a guy who prefers large sealed and infinite baffle enclosures. When we stepped it up to 1kW, it was more than overpowering my front stage. Too much output for me with music at high volumes.

Ported 4.0 cubic feet tuned to 30 Hz

Low end continued to improve. There could really be no complaints about bottom octave performance with this alignment on any music. There were no noticeable hiccups in terms of accuracy and output was very impressive. The bottom end was really quite strong, dominating compared to the top end response. If you like a heavy bottom end, this is probably the enclosure for you. Again, we put 1kW to it, and it was really too much for me. I think this would be a favourite with a lot of people in the car audio world who like their daily boomers. This was used for most musical testing above.

Ported 5.0 cubic feet tuned to 20 Hz

This is actually a really, really good alignment for home theatre. I find a lot of people like a rising bottom end; the Icon is virtually flat to 20 Hz here and when paired with the room's transfer function, had a strong, accurate bottom end that didn't sound particularly overpowering. You do have to be careful about running out of excursion at low frequencies, but this was a winner for me. I was really pleasantly surprised with this combination. Adding more power was unnecessary and may have resulted in damage, so we skipped it for this enclosure.

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Overall Listening Impressions:

This was a very nice driver to listen to. Top end output was good, but not extraordinary. Bottom end was slightly above average in a sealed enclosure and pleasant to my ear, but lacking below 30 Hz. It's really not much of an issue if you're listening to music. Ported output was very impressive if not excessive for my taste. The best word to describe it would be warm and controlled, but as I mentioned earlier, I personally prefer a very sterile sound typical of extremely low distortion designs that many others seem to hate. I would rank it ahead of almost every non-BL optimized design I have heard. For the sake of impartiality, here are some comments from people that came over to listen to the Icon:

"It's easily the best speaker I've heard. I haven't heard bass with such accuracy before but it was still so loud in those ported enclosures."

"Very intense when we watched Jurassic Park. My organs felt kind of weird."

"I thought it was good in the medium sealed enclosure we listened with. When we switched it to the ported enclosures, I was really impressed."

"Good natural sound in the sealed enclosures. Exactly what it should be."

In some A/B listening sessions with 7 friends, comparing the Icon with a 15” TC-9 variant, here were the results:

Sealed output: 4-3 Icon

Sealed low frequency response: 4-3 Icon

Sealed accuracy: 5-2 Icon

Ported output: 4-3 Icon

Ported low frequency response: 6-1 Icon

Ported accuracy: 4-3 Icon

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Overall Satisfaction:

The Icon is a well built, very attractive design. Sonically, it is appealing though not the perfect driver. As far as output is concerned, it clearly thrives in a lower tuned ported enclosure and I found sealed output better than initial reviews had indicated. I would describe the Icon as a well controlled driver that works well in many applications but lacks the coil length for the large displacement required in a sealed enclosure for home theatre. It can achieve full output with less than rated RMS, which can be a good thing.

I was relatively satisfied with my experience with the Icon and would recommend it to many in the car audio world; I think most would be extremely happy with it. The Icon’s biggest challenge is it’s pricepoint: at the sale price of $269 (including shipping), it is in direct competition with some very well known speakers, including the Q from Fi and the RL-p from SoundSplinter. When compared with these two products, it’s a tough call, but I feel the Icon will more than hold it’s own. I wouldn’t say that it blew my mind when compared to other subs I've listened to (all of which cost at least twice as much), but it did very well in virtually every aspect and is more than worth the price tag associated with it.

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

Wow, Nice review. For break in i usually use minimal power free air on a 20hz tone. Other than that A+

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

I should mention I listened to a LOT more music than what is listed here and can add more comments if the above is unclear. It's a lot of reading, I know, and I'm open to any feedback.

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Wow, Nice review. For break in i usually use minimal power free air on a 20hz tone. Other than that A+

Good point. The only reason I went this route was because it gave me a chance to test burst power handling and exercise the suspension at the same time.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Not sure if it was mentioned or not....like one said, a lot of reading, but noticed that the spkr lead wires wern't woven into the spider like most high power subs are made nowadays.

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

woven leads tend to break much easier. The tinsels used on this driver appear to work well //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif. i like the semi woven leads best, but not many ppl use them

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Not sure if it was mentioned or not....like one said, a lot of reading, but noticed that the spkr lead wires wern't woven into the spider like most high power subs are made nowadays.

Thank you for reminding me about that.

Like I mentioned above, I thought the leads were a little long, but didn't experience any slapping. I don't like woven leads very much, as they compromise the integrity of the spider. I think that, ultimately, the best compromise is tied down leads, but they're not often used for some reason.

 

[dB Dom 10+ year member]

Good review but I didnt feel like reading after the second post, clean it up a little and get to the point.

 

[newusername 10+ year member]

Good review but I didnt feel like reading after the second post, clean it up a little and get to the point.

If you don't want to read it all, then don't. That's fine with me. It doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice quality for the sake of brevity.

edit: There is a conclusion of sorts, for those who don't want to read everything.