Thread: ICOS East-Coast Road trip, Dec 2014

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a road trip up the East Coast, Sarasota to Boston, in December 2014, to demo some ICOS gear to any interested member, dealer or end user. This thread is for collecting feedback, gauging interest and responding questions. Please feel free to PM or email me if you are interested or intrigued.

Icos has been making active amplifications in France for over 40 years, and is also making CD-players, DACs and amplifiers. We've been focused on our domestic market all that time, with some measure of success:

• Over the years, we collected about all the awards you can get around here (Diapason d'Or, Choc de la Musique, Meilleur Achat Haute Fidélité...)
• We have a very significant market share in the very high end in France, with a few thousands happy customers
• We are currently distributed by six reputable dealers in France (for stereo gear) and have setup a showroom in Paris for active amplification systems. Also, we just started expanding to Northern Europe.

ICOS' philosophy is one of messing as little as possible with the message, using simple, logical, sometimes out-of-the box circuits and concepts. For instance, our current range of amplifiers has no capacitor on the signal's path. This requires care in the implementation of these concepts and some well thought through power supplies. Also, going to concerts a lot.

Our fairly unoriginal goal is to establish direct connection with the music, reproduce all the subtleties embedded in a recording, and create a realistic and sustainable experience that make our clients happy.

Our flagship system is the 580 Dédicace, a five way triphonic active amplification system with a monophonic subwoofer, two icosaedric shaped medium-treble speakers (hence the name ICOS), a separate power supply, an amplifilter with direct liaison to the five drives, and a preamplifier that has no capacitor on the signal's path. It retails at 66k$.

There is a "mini", 3 way version of this system with speakers the size of basket balls, for less than 17k$.

Our top-of-the-range stereo amplifier, the Elsberg 2140 Dédicace (12k$), is based on the same technology as the 580 Dédidace and looks the same, it is designed to drive the most demanding speakers with power, precision and neutrality.

The entry level stereo amplifier is the Elsberg 270 ($6,100) Inclusive and has a DAC included.

Our Dactablette ($4,400) is both a DAC and a stable stand for a drive or any other electronic device. It is entirely symmetrical, with oversized transformers and video amplifiers at the output stage, as well as our usual double symmetrical power supply.

There's a mini model but it's not worth exporting