By Dr. Marie Miczak
After seeing ice skating coaches struggling with clumsy CD and MP3 players, I knew there had to be a better way. Just watching the coaches and skaters hanging on to their music players and being totally distracted made me nervous. Now everyone is coming out with MP3 players but very few of them are worth spending any money on at all. One problem is the difficulty in adding songs. This is the main reason we want a MP3 isn't it? We want OUR program music on the player and quick access to it at that.
Enter HighGear's TrailAudio. I've reviewed HighGears's other quality products for cross training such as their Survival Module called the Adventure Plus and their Fitware Pedometer with FM Radio. The hallmark of HighGear's products is that they are all reliably built and rugged for outdoor use. They've made their TrailAudio in the same way. Easy to use, bomb-proof and full of details you'd expect from a high quality digital audio player.
Weighing in at a scant 4 ounces, it is perhaps the lightest, sleekest unit you'll find anywhere. It is also splash proof with a self-sealing battery compartment. It has a carabiner which can clip on securely to your training jacket or belt loop. One of the nicest features is the negative LCD display.
So how does it sound? Well, with 5 serious graphic equalizers, your music whether Pop, Jazz, Rock or Classical will sound fantastic. Simply select the mode for the music you most often listen to. The quality of the sound was quite surprising especially coming from a unit this small. Downloads to the unit are a snap. I have Window's Media Player but you don't need to install special software to set this up. As it comes with a built in USB plug you only need to plug it into your computer and go to My Computer. Your computer should recognize it as an external file, which it is. Depending on your program, you can either drag and drop songs onto the player or for me, I simply ripped and synced selected songs from some of my favorite CD Library onto the player. I loaded 16 songs in under 3 minutes. Playback was easy and the sound quality was better than listening to it on my CD player, (go figure). I tested the larger MB TrailAudio 512 which should hold far more songs than your freestyle ice time will cover.
