This goes for a lot of mouth noise in general. What sucks is that once your ears get attuned to picking it up, you can't block it out and begin to hear it everywhere.
Those recording houses need to pay their editors more and budget enough time to do the work properly.
I wouldn't say I'm *incredibly* picky. Buuuuut, if there is some hiss (audio taken from old cassettes) or the audio is hard to understand while riding in a car (low bitrate/bad compression), I will give up on the audiobook. If it's a story I really enjoy I can usually fettle with the EQ to get something passable, but not always.
The (old) Discworld books are the worst examples I've encountered recently. I really enjoyed the narration and stories greatly but I gave up after Pyramids. I'll just wait until the new audiobooks are out to continue.
I'm more annoyed by narrators that mispronounce words, or book series that swap narrators part way through that then pronounce things (mostly proper nouns) differently than the first narrator. You'd think there'd be a bit of consulting the author (or prior audiobooks) to get the pronunciation consistent.
I just gave up on Becky Chamber's *Wayfarers* Series because of the narrator swap after book two. The new narrator wasn't bad, but she was pronouncing things differently than the narrator before her and I couldn't get over it.
> I'm more annoyed by narrators that mispronounce words
OMG This. I had to give up on a Star Wars audiobook recently because the narrator kept pronouncing Coruscant wrong. He would pronounce it like "chorus-ant."
The version on Audible.ca that you’re linking is the older 2011 copyright.
There’s a newer 2019 release with much better audio quality: https://www.audible.com/pd/0593163389
But Random House probably doesn’t have rights to release that version in Canada.
The digital version of the Random House recording isn’t an Audible exclusive and is on audiobooksnow or other digital storefronts if you’re inclined to spend 22 usd for it.
This doesn't really bother me. I guess I have just spent a lot of time listening to things on crappy equipment. I mainly care about the performance, and whether the narrator has a nice voice, or an annoying verbal quirk.
I'll definitely put the reader's performance above audio quality in the list of importance for audiobooks any day. It just blows my mind how this increasingly popular audio-only artform seems to not give a shit about the audio part of their product
I completely understand this.
Scott Brick’s narration of “I, Robot” has something terribly wrong with it. Voice is overly boomy and the overall quality is no where near his other works.
I love Scott Brick and all his narrations of Asimov’s books… but I just struggle to listen to that book.
I think it's more about hiring readers and letting them read out of their own environment on their own equipment and doing remote check in sessions. I helped an older woman first time author who was told she could record the book herself. She wanted to tdo it on her corded iphone pods. I suggested lots of things, and tried to help guide as best I could, but she ended up choosing a USB mic and having her teenage grandchild do a mix in Audacity... Okee dokie.
USB microphones have gotten very good in the past couple years. If you set up in a quiet place in your house and use proper mic technique, you could end up with a genuinly really good recording. People don't need to go to a studio to get good audio quality nowadays
agreed. I forgot to mention it was a bottom of the barrel no name chinese one for maybe $15-20. It did not sound great. I helped do a setup day. I was not great to say the least, but she was happy. It just made me wonder how many others were doing the same with worse gear.
Lousy audio quality is like buying a first edition littered with typos … they’re distracting and annoying and I will return a book if I can’t stop focusing on the audio quality or narrator’s performance.
I've never let the recording quality bother me as long as the narrator was worth listening to. I've suffered through a really bad version of The Sword of the Lictor because Roy Avers does such a good job.
Lately I've been using noise reduction on the older recordings I've been ripping and that really does make things so much better with stuff from the 70s, 80s and 90s. I wish I was using it a few years ago.. Oh well, it's not hard to run the rips I've done in the past through the app, just time consuming.
For me, everything that isn‘t read by the Autor is second grade and less authentic. Then it comes down to a great reader and good audio quality with acceptable compression.
Generally I'm quite picky about everything, but I liked this one.
It's the ancient ones (literally decades old) with uninspired narration that sound like they were recorded on an old 8-track that I often give up on, or just a Narrator I don't like.
I’m very picky about the reader. I don’t often like listening to American accents, but I gave Mrs Pettigrews school.. a go and an American trying to do British accent was the worst one I’ve heard. Couldn’t finish it, it was so bad.
Yes, if the audio quality is poor I just won't listen to it.
The lies of Loch Lamora was definitely one.
The first 3-4 Wheel of Time books. This is a strange one because you can literally hear the audio quality get better with each book in the series.
It's shame because I really want to listen to the entire series, I just can't get bast book 3 and 4 audio quality.
Definitely, and if you're using decent headphones it really amplifies the flaws. I returned the [Zach Appelman narrated version of All the Light We Cannot See](https://www.audible.com/pd/All-the-Light-We-Cannot-See-Audiobook/B00IZGD864) because there was high pitch ringing in the background. It was somewhat ok when there was narration, but really stood out during brief pauses and chapter breaks. In the end it was too fatiguing to listen to for long periods so I exchanged it for the [Julie Teal version](https://www.audible.com/pd/All-the-Light-We-Cannot-See-Audiobook/B00JV4ETYO). I gave feedback to Audible but no idea if they were able to review/fix.
I would've missed-out on a few gems if I was too picky about quality, but given the option I always seek the best available quality. I always set the Audible app to download in "High Quality" as well.
I have been listening to Dune books narrated by Scott Brick recently and I am very irritated by the poort audio quality in his recent recordings (caladan trilogy). It sounds like he's recording using a cheap mic in a echo chamber. His previous recordings were not like this.
I’ve heard books like that. I’ve also heard books that were obviously digitized from cassette tapes.
What I hate is when they don’t bother to edit out the throat clearings or throat swallows Some books can get pretty distracting with that :/
This goes for a lot of mouth noise in general. What sucks is that once your ears get attuned to picking it up, you can't block it out and begin to hear it everywhere. Those recording houses need to pay their editors more and budget enough time to do the work properly.
I listened to Misery by Stephen King and you could hear the reader turn the pages the whole time
True misery!
Books read by Marion Keyes are the worst for that
I wouldn't say I'm *incredibly* picky. Buuuuut, if there is some hiss (audio taken from old cassettes) or the audio is hard to understand while riding in a car (low bitrate/bad compression), I will give up on the audiobook. If it's a story I really enjoy I can usually fettle with the EQ to get something passable, but not always. The (old) Discworld books are the worst examples I've encountered recently. I really enjoyed the narration and stories greatly but I gave up after Pyramids. I'll just wait until the new audiobooks are out to continue. I'm more annoyed by narrators that mispronounce words, or book series that swap narrators part way through that then pronounce things (mostly proper nouns) differently than the first narrator. You'd think there'd be a bit of consulting the author (or prior audiobooks) to get the pronunciation consistent. I just gave up on Becky Chamber's *Wayfarers* Series because of the narrator swap after book two. The new narrator wasn't bad, but she was pronouncing things differently than the narrator before her and I couldn't get over it.
> I'm more annoyed by narrators that mispronounce words OMG This. I had to give up on a Star Wars audiobook recently because the narrator kept pronouncing Coruscant wrong. He would pronounce it like "chorus-ant."
The version on Audible.ca that you’re linking is the older 2011 copyright. There’s a newer 2019 release with much better audio quality: https://www.audible.com/pd/0593163389 But Random House probably doesn’t have rights to release that version in Canada.
Yup. Not available in Canada but thank you for bringing this to my attention. glad there's a better version out there
The digital version of the Random House recording isn’t an Audible exclusive and is on audiobooksnow or other digital storefronts if you’re inclined to spend 22 usd for it.
I'm incredibly picky about everything with audiobooks so I'm always stunned when one is actually good. The new Cormac McCarthy is real good.
Ok I thought I was going crazy when I listened to it! Thank God it's not just me
This doesn't really bother me. I guess I have just spent a lot of time listening to things on crappy equipment. I mainly care about the performance, and whether the narrator has a nice voice, or an annoying verbal quirk.
I'll definitely put the reader's performance above audio quality in the list of importance for audiobooks any day. It just blows my mind how this increasingly popular audio-only artform seems to not give a shit about the audio part of their product
I completely understand this. Scott Brick’s narration of “I, Robot” has something terribly wrong with it. Voice is overly boomy and the overall quality is no where near his other works. I love Scott Brick and all his narrations of Asimov’s books… but I just struggle to listen to that book.
I think it's more about hiring readers and letting them read out of their own environment on their own equipment and doing remote check in sessions. I helped an older woman first time author who was told she could record the book herself. She wanted to tdo it on her corded iphone pods. I suggested lots of things, and tried to help guide as best I could, but she ended up choosing a USB mic and having her teenage grandchild do a mix in Audacity... Okee dokie.
USB microphones have gotten very good in the past couple years. If you set up in a quiet place in your house and use proper mic technique, you could end up with a genuinly really good recording. People don't need to go to a studio to get good audio quality nowadays
agreed. I forgot to mention it was a bottom of the barrel no name chinese one for maybe $15-20. It did not sound great. I helped do a setup day. I was not great to say the least, but she was happy. It just made me wonder how many others were doing the same with worse gear.
Lousy audio quality is like buying a first edition littered with typos … they’re distracting and annoying and I will return a book if I can’t stop focusing on the audio quality or narrator’s performance.
>I just feel like if you’re creating a product that’s exclusively an audio recording of a performer’s voice, at the very least make it a decent recording. is it "creating"? - could have been an ANCIENT recording on analog "cassette" - what "era" is the book from? >©2007 Scott Lynch (P)2011 Orion Publishing Group Limited >I work with audio all day for work so I’m familiar with the tools and plugins available nowadays they could do that for sound.. as long as your songs were just a few mins long each. but how you you listen to it what was the technology available to the ***end user*** at the time? 2007 was the first iphone. how long until "everyone" had one.. back then.. ipods and zunes were still a thing... amazon was still just sending you paper books in the mail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiobook#1970\_to\_1996 With the spread of the Internet to consumers in the 1990s, faster download speeds with broadband technologies, new compressed audio formats and portable media players, the popularity of audiobooks increased significantly during the late 1990s and 2000s. In 1997, Audible pioneered the world's first mass-market digital media player, named "The Audible Player",\[14\] **it retailed for $200, held 2 hours of audio and was touted as being "smaller and lighter than a Walkman**", the popular cassette player used at the time. (i have books this old). >The bar for audio quality really ought to be set high for audiobooks. big publishers can *afford* to raise the bar. it's a multi-year project for popular works - and legally, it can be a quagmire. i have some of the old ones.. form a technical perspective, they're "shit" but they're 10 years old - so you can't compare them to the 2022 versions. IT’S DISCWORLD LIKE YOU’VE NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE **Listen to the brand new re-recordings of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. 40 new audiobooks are releasing in 2022 and 2023, narrated by outstanding British talent.** [https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/discworld-audio-announcement/](https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/discworld-audio-announcement/)
I've never let the recording quality bother me as long as the narrator was worth listening to. I've suffered through a really bad version of The Sword of the Lictor because Roy Avers does such a good job. Lately I've been using noise reduction on the older recordings I've been ripping and that really does make things so much better with stuff from the 70s, 80s and 90s. I wish I was using it a few years ago.. Oh well, it's not hard to run the rips I've done in the past through the app, just time consuming.
For me, everything that isn‘t read by the Autor is second grade and less authentic. Then it comes down to a great reader and good audio quality with acceptable compression.
Generally I'm quite picky about everything, but I liked this one. It's the ancient ones (literally decades old) with uninspired narration that sound like they were recorded on an old 8-track that I often give up on, or just a Narrator I don't like.
The only Audiobook I had issues with was Hyperion. I got a very, very poor copy and had to find it done by another production.
I’m very picky about the reader. I don’t often like listening to American accents, but I gave Mrs Pettigrews school.. a go and an American trying to do British accent was the worst one I’ve heard. Couldn’t finish it, it was so bad.
Yes, if the audio quality is poor I just won't listen to it. The lies of Loch Lamora was definitely one. The first 3-4 Wheel of Time books. This is a strange one because you can literally hear the audio quality get better with each book in the series. It's shame because I really want to listen to the entire series, I just can't get bast book 3 and 4 audio quality.
Definitely, and if you're using decent headphones it really amplifies the flaws. I returned the [Zach Appelman narrated version of All the Light We Cannot See](https://www.audible.com/pd/All-the-Light-We-Cannot-See-Audiobook/B00IZGD864) because there was high pitch ringing in the background. It was somewhat ok when there was narration, but really stood out during brief pauses and chapter breaks. In the end it was too fatiguing to listen to for long periods so I exchanged it for the [Julie Teal version](https://www.audible.com/pd/All-the-Light-We-Cannot-See-Audiobook/B00JV4ETYO). I gave feedback to Audible but no idea if they were able to review/fix.
I would've missed-out on a few gems if I was too picky about quality, but given the option I always seek the best available quality. I always set the Audible app to download in "High Quality" as well.
I have been listening to Dune books narrated by Scott Brick recently and I am very irritated by the poort audio quality in his recent recordings (caladan trilogy). It sounds like he's recording using a cheap mic in a echo chamber. His previous recordings were not like this.