This thread reminds me how much I really like Audible's basic policy of one credit regardless of length. If selection were the same, I might prefer a cheaper rental or subscription program like a netflix for audiobooks since I will probably rarely re-listen to a book anytime in the foreseeable future, but if I am paying to buy the books it's so nice not to worry about needing more credits for longer books. If some other company had with a similar model become the dominant audiobook company I could easily see a decision to make customers use more credits as books get longer. Could happen with Audible too at some point but, with Bezos the book-loving and customer-service-oriented CEO still overseeing Amazon, I hope not.
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Originally Posted by tomsem
One of the audiobook versions of Les Miserables is 69 hours long. The one I have (and have yet to read) is 60 hours long. And there is one that is only 51 hours long.
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I listened to the Naxos recording read by Bill Homewood which clocks in at 67 hours and 52 minutes and is to date my longest audiobook listened to. I see now that it's the second longest recording of Les Mis on Audible, only an hour and a half shorter than the longest. It only cost me one credit.
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But then Audible lists an unabridged Russian Edition that is only two and a half hours long. If only my Russian were good enough...
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Don't trust it. That's the trouble with these audiobooks of public domain classics- anyone can do an abridgement and slap an 'unabridged' onto it whether by accident or on purpose, so how are we to trust the version we pick is truly unabridged? The one you mentioned is easy to spot but others can be closer in length and more difficult to ascertain.
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It is fascinating that there can be so much variation, depending on who is reading. But that is where it becomes essential to be able to adjust the playback speed. I often listen at 2x, depending on the speaker.
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I think the Audible app I use now does label the speed correctly but the one I used before didn't. I used to buy from Audible and download to my computer to put the audiobooks on my iTunes and then listen on my iPod Nano (because it wasn't possible to use the Audible app on the Nano). Anyway, whatever iTunes audiobook software I was using on the Nano, if I chose 2x it wasn't actually. I became suspect so I timed it and found it was closer to 1.25x or 1.5x. So on that I used '2x' but on the Audible app 2x is much too fast for me since I'm usually doing other things while listening.