how is the voice "quality" on audio books?

[crane3]

Question: How is the voice quality of the audio books, especially on Amazon for the Kindles?

Reason for asking is that there are ebooks that I want to get but it is only available as an audio book; also had read long ago that not "everything" is read or voiced out.

Considering the prices, is it worth it? Then again, if a print book isn't available.........got to check the used bookstores first...

[wawasteele]

The quailty varies by each book and reader. Most, if not all, audiobooks let you listen to a sample before purchasing. You can also read the reviews of a specific auidobook to get opinions.

MobilRead has a forum dedicated for audiobooks. You might want to check here.

[HarryT]

Quality is generally fine; certainly as good as, say, a decent radio broadcast.

If the audiobook is "unabridged", then the entire book will be read; if it's "abridged", it will be edited to a shorter length.

[pidgeon92]

Check with your local library, they might have a good selection of downloadable audiobooks for you to choose from.

I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and for the most part the sound quality is very good. The quality of the narrator is a different topic altogether.

[JSWolf]

It also depends on the bitrate. If it's too low you can notice is. 128K would do OK for voice only. 64k is pushing it. 32k is no good.

[susan_cassidy]

I think you may be thinking of text-to-speech, especially when you mention "not being read or voiced". That can happen with TTS, but a human narrator reads everything in the script.

[theducks]

Audio books are a 'Performance' with performers (1 or more).
As with any 'Performance' YMMV, but almost any done other than by the Author are usually quite good.

IMHO avoid TTS (recordings), you are stuck with 'As Delivered' .

Pronunciation is the first to suffer.

Some TTS engines allow customization of voice (pitch) and speed

[crane3]

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll pass on the audio books; did get a couple of audios from Librivox to checkout tho.

The article about abridging books with audio was many years ago & was referring to audio cassettes; don't think TTS was around then.

I did have a cd of an audio book that was done by a British actress which was quite good, but still missing something; reason for buying it was because of the actress (don't recall the blond's name). The CD went out with lots of stuff when doing "house cleaning" when downsizing to another apartment; too many things went to the trash which shouldn't have been thrown away if I knew what I was doing.

[Blossom]

If it's a fiction audio book you want a narrator who is a voice actor otherwise it can be quite boring. Some voice actors are so amazing that can take a mediocre story and turn it into a 5 star book. I love audio books if the voice actor can perform quite good. Those narrators who just read the book I can't stand or if they read too fast or sound nasally or monotone I just read the book instead.

[Alohamora]

I really enjoy listening to audio books from Audible, I listen while driving mostly. Some of the readers are so good I can enjoy genres that I'd be bored with in print form. Rarely, I run into the opposite, a reader so monotone and dry, they ruin a good book.

If you're asking about technical audio quality, years ago, when Audible only had the numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 formats, I couldn't stand the quality, compression artifacts ruined listening for me, and I stuck to books on CD from the library. Since Audible came up with the "enhanced' format, The sound quality is very good.

I get the platinum membership, $23 for 2 books a month, for a few months, get the books I want, then put the membership on hold for a few months until I'm running low on new books or ones I want to re-read (Re-hear?), then start it up again. I also get the daily deals email and occasionally find interesting books on sale for $5 or under. I feel the cost is well worth it to keep myself sane while driving.

[Kai Winters]

I've recently started listening to audio books using Audible.
Only listened to two different "readers" so far and while good one is much better than the other.
Sound quality is fine, also dependent on the listening device...I use the speakers in my iphone5s, car audio system...high quality...and a Jabra wireless device via Bluetooth which also works great.

One reader does a very good job with accents, gender, etc. while the other does an adequate job.
One is very good at pronunciation while the other is not good at all on seemingly easy words...sometimes causing me to cringe and wonder where the person learned to speak and read.

Overall I enjoy audio books and Audible does a great job.
I buy a lot of ebooks on Amazon and if there is an Audible version available it is much cheaper to buy via Amazon than directly through Audible. I've been able to buy the Audible version for five bucks or less via Amazon where a purchase directly at Audible may be over twenty bucks.

[David Munch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It also depends on the bitrate. If it's too low you can notice is. 128K would do OK for voice only. 64k is pushing it. 32k is no good.

This of course also depends on what format the audiobooks are encoding in. For AAC, anything from 64kbps and above is just fine. For MP3 or WMA, I would definitely go for at least 128kbps. But in most cases you won't be bothered even with low audio quality files, unless they are really bad. You'll quickly get used to it anyway, as long as you can tell what the reader is saying.

And as everybody else mentions, give the samples a try. And don't be scared that there's such a big difference between readers - You'll get used to large variations. And variations doesn't necessarily mean loss of quality of the reading. Some readers suits specific books better than others.
For instance, in my experience, a female reader is better for books with female protagonists for some weird psychological reason.

[crane3]

Thanks everyone. I've just been browsing the library for the audio books & do find some that I can checkout; they all seem to have 2 min samples but I don't see anything about the mp3 speed even if they do specify when unabridged.

Just got Bujold's "A Civil Campaign" & will listen & may "follow" it via text; I have read the book years back but will see how well the text is followed & how I can enjoy it.

I do have a new question on what do one use for reading the mp3? as in I think I can only get the mp3 files via Overdrive; however, do people usually copy/move the files to something else to listen? I don't remember if any of the ereaders, Aldiko, MoonReader or Mantano does mp3. Oh, this is when downloading the audio onto the computer rather than the device (kindle or android).

[Blossom]

We have a Audiobook forum that will give you lots of suggestions. There is a thread here on software for Audiobooks