The movie is unforgivable, but the Dune audiobook was good enough to become a month-long obsession of mine.
I have a confession to make. Earlier this year I got my hands on an audiobook CD version of Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic Dune, which I used to research a segment on how to rip audiobook CDs to an iPod. But what started as research became an obsession. For several weeks, I stopped listening to music or my regular rotation of podcasts and devoted all of my recreational listening hours to Dune (mind you, it's a long book). When it was done...I listened to the whole thing all over again! A month of my life got sucked into an audiobook and I loved every minute of it.
Eventually I had to go cold turkey, but I can definitely understand how people get hooked on audiobooks. The right book with the right actors can really suck in your attention and imagination like nothing else.
Of course, if you're going to try and sneak in a listen on your lunch break or commute, you want to have an MP3 player that will make it as easy as possible to jump right in with a minimum of hassle. A good, audiobook-friendly MP3 player needs to do more than just work with Audible files, it also needs to automatically bookmark playback and make it easy to rewind passages and keep chapters in their correct order.
So if you're shopping for a new MP3 player that will do justice to your audiobooks, I've put together my top-five players in a handy chart. My first choice is the iPod Touch, which now includes an audiobook download store directly on the device. Other cool audiobook-friendly features include a very unique "scrubber" bar for scanning through audio with fine-grain control, as well as playback speed and 30-second rewind buttons right on the screen. Also, as corny as it sounds, it's nice to have book cover artwork on the nice, large, 3.5-inch screen.
Click through to see the rest of my recommendations.
The Sansa Fuze offers three playback speeds--fast, normal, and slow--for podcasts and audiobooks.
(Credit: SanDisk)As its title may suggest, an MP3 player's primary duty is to play MP3s, which are more often than not music files. But audiobooks, podcasts, and other spoken-word content enjoy plenty of face time on portable audio devices, and why not? They offer an informative and entertaining way to pass the time. But for those of us who prefer our information and entertainment in condensed form, time is of the essence. Spoken-word content is one type of audio that (generally) doesn't sound completely absurd when sped up, and doing so gives the listener a way to get through said files with due haste.
Luckily, there are a handful of MP3 players on the market that offer a feature known as variable playback speed, which allows you to speed up (or slow down) audio on-the-fly--no clunky software conversions required.
Correction: The Microsoft Zune HD will not be available outside of the United States. The Zune Video Marketplace for Xbox, however, will be available for select countries beyond the U.S., including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
Donald and Jasmine give the newly official Zune HD its deserved time in the spotlight as they both gush about the player's design and HD features as well as speculate about pricing and other possible Wi-Fi-related additions. Also this week, the Insiders discuss rumblings about a potential Sirius XM App for the iPhone. Then, Jasmine brings up some of the tiniest MP3 players to ever be reviewed by CNET, while Donald goes off on a tangent about audiobooks. And we musn't forget to give props to the entity that gave this whole digital music thing a violent shove into the mainstream consciousness: Napster, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary this week.
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As an English major with a tech job, I feel a little guilty not jumping onto the e-book and Kindle bandwagon. I love books, but I'm just too cheap to justify an e-book reader and too lazy to believe I would use it. Nope, until they find a way to upload books directly to my brain, my format of choice is the audiobook.
The only problem I have with audiobooks is that they're expensive, especially if you're downloading them online at $15-$25 a pop. To cut expenses, audiobook fans will often stick with CDs--trading them with each other, loaning them from local libraries, or signing up for a subscription service.
But if you've ever tried to transfer a multi-CD audiobook onto an iPod, you've probably run into problems such as chapters playing out of order, mislabeled or missing files, or just a generally messy experience. There's no foolproof way to get a multi-CD audiobook onto an iPod, but there's certainly a few tips and tricks that can make the experience smoother.
To help you through the process, I've put together a slideshow and video tutorial with all my favorite tips for getting audiobooks CDs into iTunes and on to the iPod.
On this week's episode, Donald and Jasmine discuss at length whether brick-and-mortar record shops are worth saving...or at least, Donald does, while Jasmine wonders whether he will ever get sick of talking about it. Also, Jasmine expounds upon the virtues of subscription music, or more specifically, Rhapsody. Plus, find out the deets on an excellent audiobook player for the visual impaired and the latest blah MP3 player to come out of Philips' warehouse.
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One of the least appreciated conveniences MP3 players have given us is the capability to fit a library of audiobooks in our pocket. For those with vision impairment or blindness, the ease of instantly downloading digital audiobooks is especially liberating, compared with the days of CDs and cassettes. Unfortunately, most MP3 players simply aren't designed with accessibility in mind, keeping the convenience of digital audiobooks out of reach for those who would most appreciate it.
The HumanWare VictorReader Stream digital-audio player isn't particularly slim, attractive, or affordable ($349), but its unique design is made specifically for the needs of blind and vision-impaired users. The device is laid out similarly to a large mobile phone, complete with a spacious numerical keypad and dedicated volume buttons on the side. A numerical keypad may seem like an odd choice of navigation for a portable audio player, but in its defense, few other interfaces are as instantly and universally recognizable to the touch. The tricky part is remembering exactly what each key represents. For instance, repeatedly pressing the number one will cycle you though the Stream's main menu categories, each announced over your headphones or the internal speaker in a pleasant synthetic voice.
The VictorReader Stream may look like a phone, but it's actually an MP3 and audiobook player designed for the blind and visually impaired.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)Below the keypad are basic playback controls (Play, Pause, Reverse, and Skip), each differentiated by the shape of its key. You'll also find an oval-shaped key above the play button that advances the built-in sleep timer in increments of 15 minutes, in case you have a tendency to doze off while listening to books.... Read More
The Numark TTi rips vinyl to your iPod.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)Donald and Jasmine announce the winner of the Gears of War II Special Edition Zune 120, but first you have to listen to them talk about Apple's new In-Ear Headphones, some pricey single-minded iPod accessories, Donald's one year Zuniversary, a roundup of the top budget headphones, and a cool and creative reason to have a Rhapsody subscription.
Also this week: think up a creative Twitter alias for Jasmine for CES and get a chance to win a JBL On Stage Micro.
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iTunes 8 has made it easier to classify any audio file as an audiobook, allowing you to resume playback, control playback speed, and prevent your books from popping up on music playlists.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Digital audiobooks come in all shapes and sizes. You can purchase them online from sites like Audible, eMusic, and iTunes. You can download free audiobooks from places like Archive.org. Or, you can rip audiobooks to your computer from CD. Unfortunately, no matter where your digital audiobooks come from, getting iTunes and your iPod to treat them as an audiobook--not some random playlist of songs--can be a struggle.
If you've ever purchased an audiobook through iTunes, you may have noticed that the file appears in a separate audiobook tab in your media library. Keeping your audiobooks separate from your music library not only makes them easier to find, but it also prevents chapters of Crime and Punishment from popping up in a party music playlist.
iTunes even treats the playback of audiobooks differently than music playback, allowing you to adjust the playback speed of the file and automatically resume any previously played chapter where it left off instead of starting at the beginning.
You don't have to purchase your audiobooks from Apple to get the special iTunes audiobook treatment. By tweaking a few settings, you can make iTunes and your iPod recognize any audio file or group of audio files as an audiobook. To find out how, take a look at our step-by-step guide to creating audiobooks in iTunes.
Editors' note: This tutorial requires Tunes 8.0.1 or higher.
Donald and Jasmine tease the iPod Nano vs. Microsoft Zune Prizefight and discuss a variety of portable audio accouterments, including a pair of headphones, a portable iPhone-compatible speaker, and the best MP3 players for audiobooks.
Also, hear some gab on the new Zune software, and find out who won last week's contest.
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Like to listen to audio books on your MP3 player, but your player lacks a bookmark function? If you have long audio files that haven't already been split into chapters, it can be a pain to fast-forward to the desired point in the track. This tutorial can help you split audio books into shorter tracks on your own. It can also be used with music, although track length and nomenclature will be different than what is described here. (A tip: if you are splitting an audio file with several songs in it, use points of silence as a guide rather than the counter.)
Cost: Free
Time commitment: Varies
System requirements: Mac or Windows
- Download and install Audacity
For either Windows or Mac. - Download and install the latest LAME MP3 encoder
- Extract the LAME file
From the LAME.zip file, extract only the file lame_enc.dll. Save it someplace that's easy to find on your hard drive, such as the desktop. (When you export your files as MP3, Audacity will ask you to locate it.) - Open Audacity
Go to File > Open, then select the audio file you wish to split from wherever it is stored on your hard drive. In the upper-right corner of the window, ensure that the selection tool (it looks like an uppercase "I") button is highlighted. - Highlight selection
Starting at the very beginning of the audio file, click and drag the selector so that it highlights a selection of the file. (You can use the keyboard arrows to zero in on "0" if necessary.)
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Donald Bell is an electronic musician, a veteran record store employee, and a fearless hardware hacker. He's also CNET's Senior Editor for MP3 and digital audio.
Jasmine France is CNET's resident digital audio doyenne, writing and editing product reviews, crave blogs, and feature stories on all things MP3. And if you need advice on headphones, she's your girl.
