Just bought a Rio Volt and converting audio books to MP3 or Windows Media is really the way to go. Dreamcatcher unabrigded takes up 20 CDs, but can fit on one CD by converting it to a 64kb Windows Media file and still sounds great. I have also copied many of my cassette books over. Some were already starting to sound worn after being borrowed several times by friends. Its so much easier being able to carry one CD instead of several tapes. I wish they would start selling Audiobooks in MP3 format. Fitting everything on one CD should lower the cost some and certainly take up less storage space. The Volt is an amazing CD player and can handle just about every type of CD, MP3, or Windows Media file you put into it.

I've thought about getting a portable player for audio books. Audible.com always sends me email about 'exciting new offers' and a lot of the times, while I haven't indulged, they really are 'exciting offers.' I've downloaded about a half dozen books from them, and have gotten offers on quite a few free after rebate players.

I have an audible.com account and for $19.95 a month you really can't beat being able to download any 5 books you want from their library. Audible files won't play directly on a Rio Volt, but I just convert them to regular MP3s using Goldwave and then burn them on a CD to take with me.

If you can convert then to MP3's I might be interested. Darkside, how is the quality of the audio? I checked their selection a little bit and it seems pretty good. Do they have any (a lot?) unabridged stuff? Have you noticed how often they update with new (old) titles? TIA!

They use 4 different types of compression. Type 1 is very compressed and takes a little bit of getting used to. Its kind of AM radio quality. However, most of their newer releases give you a choice of compression type 3 and 4 which sound near CD quality, but are large downloads. One of the things I like about audible is the fact they have a large unabridged selection. If there is an unabridged and abridged version of an audio book they will usually give you the choice of which one you want to download. However, there are some books which don't offer an unabridged choice. This is the link to their unabridged list.

http://www.audible.com/catalog/catalog-unabridged.html

The seem to update with new releases pretty quickly, but remember that they are owned by Random House and will only have releases from Random House, Dove, and a few other things they own. Still Random House has a large collection of authors including Stephen King.

To convert Audible files (which are encripted) back to regular MP3s will take three things. Windows Media Player (7.0 is recommended), Goldwave from http://www.goldwave.com, and either a fast computer or some patience. I have a 1.2 Ghz PC and it can take 30-40 minutes to convert a large 8-10 hour file.

[Edited by darkside on 04-25-01 at 10:18 PM]

Thanks for the reply. They seem to have a pretty good selection in the unabridged department. As far as processor speed for conversion have you tried it on any slower machines? I have a 700 at home and an 800 at work, both with 256MB RAM. Are these just going to take a while longer or does it choke on slower machines? I have no problems converting MP3's to WAV's or ripping MP3's from CD's. Thanks again.

That should be plenty fast enough. My old P166 could do it without locking up, but it would take an eternity. One thing I forgot to mention. I don't know if its just something with my computer, but my Windows Media player can't open an audible file over 100mb. I haven't figured it out, but some long type 4 files can be over 100mb. However, in that case I just use the smaller type 3 file and it sounds just about as good. I usually convert them to 64 or 96 kb MP3s depending on how much background music or sound is included in the audiobook. Gold Wave will also let you break the final converted file up into smaller segments if you want, its a pretty versitle program.

I don't venture in here too often but this question came up so I thought I'd give it a try. I did a search "audio, rental" but nothing came back so I thought I'd ask. What I'm looking for is an audio book club that operates similar to Netflix. That is you pay them a monthly fee you get so many books out at a time and when you send one back they send you the next one in your queue. I did a couple of online searches and so far most of the places I've found have per rental fees (usually pretty significant too ). So does such a thing exist?

TIA

Well... you can do a "version" of that over at www.booksontape.com

I have used these guys for two years, renting about 2 books a mon th and love them. Their service is outstanding and even though they're a bit pricey, they have a good library, and you can get free rentals every ten books.

There's audible.com for downloaded books. You can get on a plan that gives you a certain # of books per month to download onto your computer then to an mp3 player or burned cd.

tasha

Do you live near a Crackerbarrel? I hear you can buy 1 from them, then exchange it at any other crakerbarrel in the country, ad-infinitem.

Library

That is an excellent option. Sometimes the selections are slim at the branches, but I've found a ton of good audio books at the main library. Best of all its free.

Thanks for the all the ideas. The main problem w/ the library is the person I'm asking this for uses that extensively and has pretty much gone through everything they have to offer

I'd been looking at their site since it opened, and finally signed up for their subscription service since you now get the Otis player for free, and am looking for suggestions on what books to download. I've only listened to a few books in the past, so I'm not to up on which audio books are entertaining or worthwhile to spend a large amount of time on. I definitely understand that a great book can be made mundane by the narrator, and that a fair to middling book can be quite entertaining with a good narrator also. In other words, my mind is open.

I prefer fiction. General, horror or the right sci-fi. But again, I'm open to anything right now. I downloaded King's Dreamcatcher so far, and the Otis should be arriving on Tuesday, can't wait to load it up and start listening.

Also, any info on the Otis would be nice, there's not a lot of it on their website, but it seems like you can buy memory cards for it. And additional details or experience with it would be welcomed.

I've used their service for years. They have a great selection of unabridged stuff. I usually buy Mystery/Detective books, but I have also listened to some great History and Biography books.

Don't know anything about the Otis. I usually use an Ipod, but they have great compression and even an entire Stephen King novel can probably fit on the Otis.

I did Audible subscription for just over a year and finally stopped. I couldn't keep up with 2 books a month (with actual book reading) and building a library was not very convenient. I couldn't burn to my CD-R as it was too fast and they wanted me to upgrade to the new version of Roxio to support the speed of my drive. Plus, I rebuild my computer pretty regularly and every time you re-install, you have to contact Audible to get authorization to access the books you downloaded. I tried converting to a standard .mp3 format to toss the file out onto my Tivo Home Media Option and was shutdown.

While I was actively getting material from them, I concentrated on unabridged books.

I received the Otis on Monday and have been listening to it ever since. It's a great player, and as Tom Peterson says, "free is a very good price."

I've been listening to Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, and have got an Elmore Leonard book (forget the title) narrated by Steve Buscemi up in line next. Any suggestions on titles?

Anyone have information on the monthly news subscriptions? Such as the NY Times download? Length each day, for example?

Also, are there any other places to get audio news downloads?

Went to Borders website to look at the price of an audio book of a Stephen King novel. The MSRP was $75 but had a promotional price of $9.99. It seems that you don't get the CD's sent to you but you download the book. From their you can download to CD. Has anyone used this method yet? Are there any hidden catches? Thanks.

Welcome to the forum kccody.

See above (merged thread) and also: Anyone have info on MP-3 books?

On a slightly different technological tack, see also the excellent: Electronic Books/Readers--Discuss them Here!



Benedict
Moderator, Book Talk

Does listening to books on CD/tape constitute "reading" or just another way to get through the book/material?

give me "just another way to get through the book/material"

If I were to make a list of all the books I've read, I would include the books on tape I have listened to. You are still absorbing the material and listening to the story, so in my opinion it counts

Depends if it's Abridged or not.