Sound Quality Question

[darrenph1]

I got a copy of Pompeii on CD from a friend and it sounded great and really enjoyed it. So I went for the audible subscription. I downloaded "The Company" by Robert Littell and am not so happy with the sound quality. It's bearable but I really have to mess with my stereo's treble and bass to make it that way. I downloaded the highest quality version (4). Are all selections like this? I know it's nice that you can stop are start with the .aa files compared to .mp3 but I'll deal with FF if this is the case. I am using my iPod in my truck thru a cassette adapter.

Darren

[arsolot]

My observation is that the sound quality of the books on Audible is variable. In fact, I've noticed that within a book the sound quality is variable. Some books are really good (I'm listening to Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Byson now; the sound quality is excellent) and others are just average. I think that you should stick with format 4.

[Podunk]

The Audible files are highly compressed in order to use less memory on your player and also to provide faster downloads.

Audible Format 4 is a 32kps MP3 compressed file, which works well for spoken word compression, especially on portable players like the iPod.

In this case, I would say your problem has as much to do with listening through a cassette adapter on a car stereo.

The cassette adapter and the car cassette player both contribue some sound deterioration so with the three of these factors combined, there's no way it gonna match playing an uncompressed CD audio file through a CD player.

[darrenph1]

I sorry, i meant when I got the the CD I ripped it to iTunes(128k mp3) and loaded it on my iPod. I know the cassette adapter is not the greatest but it's better than the #### FM transmitter and I'm not going to risk using headphones in my car. Just was wondering if some thought the quality varied.

arsolot are you listening in car or on headphones?

parranoya have you noticed a difference in quality?

Darren

[arsolot]

darrenph1:

I'm also listening very often in my car using a cassette adapter. The sound is acceptable for most books, but I've noticed several books do have variable sound quality. I recall that The Blind Assassin changed from time to time in its quality. Right now, I'm listening to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. The sound quality of that book is just fine and better than The Blind Assassin. By the way, both books were Format 4.

Recently, I listened to Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins. While the book was enjoyable, it was only available in Format 3. In the car, I had to listen to Half Asleep with the bass turned to maximum and the treble and middle turned to minimum. I needed to adjust the volume up as well.

[Podunk]

parranoya have you noticed a difference in quality?

Darren [/B]

Darren,
Yes, I can definately tell a sound difference between an Audible file at at 32kps vs one encoded at 128 mp3 or wma. But at 128, the file size is four times larger.

But the Audible file is a good compromise of sound quality versus file size and download time.

If you encode a 20 hour book using 128, you are gonna use a lot of memory as those will be some big 'ole files.

[darrenph1]

Thanks for the input. I'm gonna give The Fabric of the Cosmos (Unabridged)
by Brian Greene a shot after I finish The Company and see how that sounds.

Darren

[Moritz]

Yesterday i drove from munich to berlin (ca. 600 km) and i listened to "The Company" the whole time. I use a cassette adapter as well and i must say, it sounded quite good and clear to me. I even thought the sound to be much better than that of my first audible book, "Cold Mountain".
So maybe you can try another cassette adapter (the adapter is not that expensive) or run a cleaning tape on your car stereo - i used a cleaning tape two weeks ago and had an noticeable improvement when using my iPod in the car.