Radial IceCube IC-1 Line Isolator Reviews
The Radial IceCube is a balanced line-level isolator that quickly and easily eliminates buzzing from your audio system. Simply by plugging it in between two line-level devices, you'll be rewarded with a hum- and buzz-free audio experience. Audio engineers at Sweetwater admire how easy the IceCube makes it to insert an isolation transformer into their signal paths. This isolator comes loaded with a custom USA-made Eclipse transformer that provides a robust low end. Designed to work easily within the -30dB to +15dB range, the IceCube will have no problem handling balanced and unbalanced devices without any distortion. This makes the IceCube an excellent option to use when you can't sacrifice your audio quality. For all your ground buzz issues, Radial's IceCube IC-1 is the solution.
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Highest Rated Reviews
No ground hum, end of story (almost... updated)
Sweetwater staff: Please append this review update to my previous one of the same title.
Thanks!
Jack
Ice Cube update: Feb 2 2023.
After living with this undeniably excellent line isolator for a few months, another detail to report: Sometimes it doesn't work! The little weirdnesses of ground leaks are variable even in the same setup, and so sometimes it will kill the hum, sometimes it will reduce it, and sometimes it won't touch it, even when everything seems to be set up just the same as last time. However, by experiments I have discovered that creative signal routing also can help. For instance: I send one line from the mixer (Yamaha AG03 running on battery) to the Mackie Thump Go (battery power) and the parallel speaker output from the mixer to a Bose Line Array powered by AC from the wall, which has another musician's mic and pedals also feeding it. The Mackie buzzes without the Ice Cube; I put the IC in the line to the Bose, the Mackie still buzzes. I feed the Bose from the XLR Thru on the Mackie instead of from the mixer, with the IC in that line; the Mackie still buzzes. Then I put the IC in the line from the mixer to the Mackie, still feeding the Bose from the XLR Thru on the Mackie. The Mackie speaker and the Bose are not isolated from each other; the buzz is gone. Go figure.
No ground hum, end of story.
I have built a pedal rig that's powered by (2) Joyo 05 batteries and has the pedal chain and a mic going into a Yamaha AG03 mixer (runs on 5v USB from the Joyo 05), and then the balanced outs from the mixer going either to my Mackie 8" thump go speaker (on its own battery) and / or to some external system, sometimes both. I don't normally need any wall power and have no connection to the house ground unless I connect to some externally powered other device. At a certain point in the evolution of my pedal chain I started getting ground hum when connecting to external devices. Ehh, the troubleshoot from hell. So I bought this Ice Cube, and it works. End of story, apparently.
The TRS output from the mixer goes through a patch cable with XLR at the other end, into the Ice Cube, and
then to the other device.
Points to note:
(1) This mono Ice Cube is about a third of the price of Radial's various stereo devices. So, if you want a stereo device, buy two of these and tie them together with a zip tie.
(2) The mono Ice Cube lacks a polarity switch. If you are handy, this is a very inexpensive DIY with
two jacks and a DPDT switch. I built one on spec to go with the Ice Cube, and it works very well - oddly,
the output of the little Yamaha AG03 mixer sounds better with pins 2 & 3 reversed, in every case. Now I intend to build a two channel polarity switch box.
Essential tool
This is a great tool to take care of any electrical interference or mysterious hums in your system. This has saved me a couple times and you should always have one of these in your toolbox just in case.
Stopped the hum
Sweetwater sent me this line isolator same day purchased. Recieved it 2 days later.
Have a powered monitor across the room from the little mixer I use with pedal board. 40 ft. Of XLR cable snaked over doors and along baseboard. Electrical plugs in the room are the same circuit.
Turn it on to practice and there WAS this deep strong hummmmm. 60 cycle noise from a ground loop? Ran a power cord across room to plug in with mixer and quiet. Won't run power cords like the XLR cable . So I ordered Radial Engineering's Ice cube line isolator and a 2 ft. XLR cable. Plugged them in at the active monitor. Turned everything on and nothing. No hum. Thanks Sweetwater for keeping extensive stock. Oh, Thanks Cody
