More Information
 On: 2007-01-01
Ive been using these for a season now and I love them!
SOUND:
The sound quality of the TuneUps is perfectly adequate for their intended purpose, which is to add some music to your skiing/snowboarding. I tend to EQ my bass a little higher when listening through the helmet, but overall, the sound sounds surprisingly decent. They wont be replacing my music headphones, but hey.. thats not the point of these anyway. I love the comfort of not having to squash in a pair of earbuds underneath my helmet.
CONSTRUCTION:
Not a whole lot to talk about here. The product is pretty simple and self-explantory. The earpads encase the speakers and has an 1/8" audio jack on the right earpad into which you plug the included audio cable, which in turn plugs into your music player. Near the earpad end of the cable is an attached control pod which features only a mute button and a clip. My earpad input plug sometimes shifts around a bit inside the earpad, so sometimes I have to fish around a bit when I plug in, but its not a major issue.
CONTROL POD:
You mute by simply pushing in the spring-loaded button on the pod and you unmute by simply pressing the button again. Its easy to mute/unmute even with your gloves on, which is nice. The length of the cable from earpad to pod, however is a bit short, so really the only place to clip it (if youre going to ues the clip at all) would be somewhere near the top of your right collar. I still havent settled on a good place to clip this pod. If you clip it with button facing outward, that also means the cable going to your mp3 player is facing outside of the jacket. When I clip it the other way I sometimes end up accidentally depressing the mute button. Maybe Ill try clipping to the actual helmet pad next time.
USAGE:
Obviously you can use it however you want. Typically, I set my mp3 player to play random tracks from a playlist, pick some sort of nominal volume level, and just let it play continously. If I need to tune out the music for a while, Ill just hit the mute button, which is easily done even with gloves on. Overall, this minimizes my need to take my gloves off and dig around through my jacket. Additional volume controls would be nice, however.
PROS:
1) mute button is easily (de)activated, even with gloves on
2) decent sound
3) comfortable way to listen to music via your helmet (versus earbuds)
4) does not prevent you from hearing your surroundings (as long as you dont blast your volume level on your player)
CONS:
1) volume control would be nice
2) somewhat limited on placement of the control pod
If youre looking for cellphone or two-way radio support, you can check out the TuneUps II. But if youre just looking to add music to your helmet and dont care about the cellphone/radio feature, you cant go wrong with the TuneUps.
Note, they are available in three different sizes of pads, so make sure you get the matching size for your helmet.
SMALL - fits XS & S helmets
MEDIUM - fits M & L helmets
LARGE - fits XL & XXL helmets
 On: 2005-09-17
These are great to use while skiing. Great sound, but......the only control if to cut off the sound. I wish I could skip songs and/or change the volume without unzipping my jacket and reaching in.
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