Audiobooks

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groveratgroverat
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I have a question for you people about audiobooks.



My brother listens to a lot of them on his CD walkman. He gets them from his college's library I believe.



I was wondering whether or not an iPod would work out better for him. I'm thinking of getting him a shuffle. Ostensibly he would get the CDs from the library and rip them to .m4a or something like that. I don't know.



So I have two questions:

1 - Would a 512MB shuffle suffice?

2 - What's an acceptable bitrate for audiobooks? 128 is overkill, no?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    128 is WAY overkill.



    Audible distribute their stuff in 32 and it is more than acceptable.



    I even downloaded one of their "books" in 8! "Salmon of Doubt". It is just bearable.



    I don´t know what format Audible is using but AAC should be superior to anything out there at low bitrates, no?



    I could sent you some snippets recoded to aiff if you want?
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  • Reply 2 of 6
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    Yeah, Audible has some free clips available and they sound great at 32kbps.



    I'm sure .m4a would be fine.



    At 32kbps you can put 6 hours into a little less than 100MB, no?
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  • Reply 3 of 6
    not unlike myselfnot unlike myself Posts: 2,037member
    I have had a heck of a time finding audio books of the stuff I actually want to ready. Mostly just 'fodder' for the masses. Anyone have any 'off the beaten path' sources for *good* audio books?
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  • Reply 4 of 6
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    Good call on that one.



    The only audiobooks I had at home to test were the Bible & Book of Mormon Audio CDs my grandmother gave me for Christmas last year. (Loony old bat.)



    I had them going in 32kbps stereo and they sounded fine. I'll re-import with mono and see how it holds up. Great space-saving tip.
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  • Reply 5 of 6
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    I'm doing an Audible trial and I'm not really impressed at all.



    Right now I'm interested in evolutionary study and all it's really got on that is the insipied middle America "why we didn't come from monkeys" tripe.



    I really want some good stuff to pipe into my head as I walk around campus from one task to another.



    Ah well.
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