Icon Audio Stereo 20 PP

[Haselsh1]

In the midst of change, I have just got an absolute bargain via ebay. I did a scan of ebay last Saturday for valve amplifiers and up came an Icon Audio Stereo 20 PP. The starting bid was £275 with no bids. Now I know that this is in fact a £500 item when brand new and that this one was around one year old with minimal usage. I therefore bid £375 knowing that the courier charge was £25. On Thursday of this week the bidding ended and there wasn't one single bid other than mine. This means of course that I ended up paying a total of £300 for an EL84 powered valve amplifier.

My original plan was to have one built by Nick and this may indeed still happen but I now have the means to investigate whether or not I wish to pay out over a grand for an amplifier. In the meantime, I await the arrival of this amp and foresee a seriously good session of music listening when it gets here. I also foresee a seriously good tube rolling session coming up.

[Ali Tait]

Well done Shaun, should be good, the EL84 is a nice musical valve, and it's hard to make a poor amp with it.

[Haselsh1]

Thanks Ali. I know that this amplifier is around 15 wpc so is unlikely to be full Class A right through but at least its a starting point.

[Ali Tait]

The WAD KEL84 I used to have was the same output. A great soinding amp. The Icon should be pretty similar.

[Haselsh1]

I'll get some nice tasty photographs of it on here as soon as it is up and running and for those that are interested (Marco), the photographs will be monochrome and using real silver...!!!

[chris@panteg]

Nice buy Shaun

I like the Icon range of amps , let us know how you get on with it

[colinB]

Very nice after sales support as well from the two guys who run it.

[Haselsh1]

Well I had a nice three hour music session with the amplifier last night and damn good it was too. It has reminded me all over again why it is I just adore valve amplifiers. The purity of the sound is quite simply gorgeous. I was listening to my favourite Madelaine Peyroux album and for the first time ever heard the most diabolical edit towards the end of one of the songs. This would have been deeply embarassing for the engineer of this album had he realised that people could actually hear it. I then moved onto Burt Bacharach's latest offering which is a truly stunning CD featuring Rufus Wainright on one of the tracks. OK so this album is recorded quieter than the Peyroux album and with only 15 Watts on tap was a blessing. I don't think this amplifier likes loud shouty CD's.

My next move is to buy a Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 SE to use with my Project RPM4/Ortofon OM30 Super combination. Does anyone have any experience with Graham Slee phono stages...?

[Peter Stockwell]

The WAD KEL84 I used to have was the same output. A great soinding amp. The Icon should be pretty similar.

Thinking of getting a "winter" amp. How do you rate, say, the WAD el84 amp compared to a bantam gold?

Sent from my Nokia phone using Tapatalk.

[Ali Tait]

Hard to say Peter, I've not heard both on the same system. You won't be disappointed with the KEL though!