If its for you, its a great service with great prices.
Written: Mar 06 '06
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Audible.com is an experience that is different for every individual. It all depends on what you like and what you are going to use it for. Try to read all the reviews in this category before you decide if you want it.
Now, on to the review.
Audible.com is a website devoted to selling digital audio books, audio magazines, audio shows and original audio content. They have a very large selection of books, both new and old of all genres. You can get audio content from CELL (The new Stephen King book) to classic Dickens to non fiction works like Guns Germs and Steel and 1776. There is also a large selection of self help and education and foreign language learning material They have audio periodicals like the wallstreet journal and the New York times which can be sent to you every day. They are around an hour each and cover the main stories in national and international politics, sports, business and editorials. There is also XM radio content available (Opie and Anthony show). All in all there is a very large selection. BUT, I would recommend looking through the site to make sure they have a variety of content you personally will enjoy before you sign up for any subscription service they offer.
There are two ways to purchase audible material. The first is the non subscription way. A normal audio book will usually set you back anywhere from $30-$50. Audible books are anywhere from 40-60 percent off those prices. This usually means you can get an audio book for the same price or less than the same book in hardcover. You purchase the book just like you would any other item in an online store. Ill explain more on what happens after you purchase later on.
The second way to purchase audible material is through their online subscription program. As of this moment there are three available.
$9.98 a month: For this monthly fee you get 30 percent off Audible’s already low price. I would recommend this if you are going to be purchasing a lot of audible material in a single month, otherwise its really not worth it.
$14.98 a month: This gives you the same discount as the other plan. It also gives you a monthly token. This token can be used to purchase any material on the audible website. It is essentially one free audio book a month. It’s actually better to get this plan if you buy only one audio book a month, rather than the cheaper plan. Trust me, the math works out.
$22.98 a month: This is the plan I have. It gives you the same discount and two audio tokens a month. You also get a free subscription to either the audio wall street journal or the New York Times. This is a good audible introductory program. Mostly because if you sign up for six months you get a free Ipod Shuffle. It ends up being about $140 over the six month period. An Ipod shuffle is worth $70 now which means you are getting a dozen audio books for about $70, or less than six dollars a book. That’s about the cost of a used paper back and about 90 percent off most books on tape.
While the content of Audible.com is great, its system for downloading and playing music can be a little annoying. When you purchase a program it is immediately stored in your archive. These programs will always be in your archive for as long as you subscribe to audible. You can download them at any time. You have the option to stream the audio from the site, but unless you only want to listen to this content on your computer, you will have to download it. You can choose the size of your files. A four hour program can be anywhere from 15mbs to 50mbs. You have to install the audible download program in order to get the files on your computer. I have yet to have a problem with this program or their download servers. I have a cable modem and I usually get 300kb per second downloads. You will notice that the audio files are not MP3. They are a special copy protected audio file that is exclusive to audio. So don’t expect to download audio books and immediately put them on the internet. In order to listen to the files on another device you have to have either the audible manager program or Itunes. I have only used Itunes with audible and have found it to work very well. You have the option to either burn the files to CDs (even though an audio book is only about three files, there are chapter breaks for each CD so if you ever lose your place it can be found again without having to listen through content you have already heard for over an hour.) or transfer it to a supported mp3 player. Two things to keep in mind. If you transfer it to a CD a normal audio book takes up between 12 and 15 of them, so make sure you have them on hand. Not all mp3 players support audible content so check with audible.com before you purchase. I know for a fact all Ipods work with audible and would recommend you use them. There have been a lot of complaints about Audible customer service. I have experienced nothing negative with them. They responded within 24 hours and always answered my questions.
Just to give you an idea let me tell you about why I use Audible. I have a two hour commute during the day and I cant stand reading on the bus. I got the free Ipod shuffle with the subscription service and for my first download I got Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and a one month subscription to the Opie and Anthony XM radio show (love it). I immediately downloaded the three files of the Dan Brown Audio book and placed them on my new Ipod. The Opie and Anthony show is delivered every day to my archive at 8AM for the entire month. Both of these items cost one token. Next month I will renew my Opie and Anthony subscription and probably get another audio book. This is a total of 100 hours of content monthly. Audible gives me the ability to enjoy my ride to work or trips in my car for a price that is unbeatable.
While there are deffinetly some problems with the system I recommend you give it a tray for six months to see if you like it. If worse comes to worse, at least you have an Ipod shuffle to show for it.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Monthly Subscription
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Epinions.com ID:
studioki
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Location: Berkeley, CA
Reviews written: 20
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